Hi there, been following your build, very interesting reading mate. has your finger healed up yet?! lol!
you're not going mad, i did start off building it to 9 foot long and was planning on putting the filter beside it or on top??!! (both were gonna be pretty ugly) so i decided to sacrifice the larger footprint and build the filter beside it, keeps the overall gallon capacity the same i suppose but definately makes the tank a WHOLE lot smaller
should haver built it wall to wall the other way on, could have been about fifteen feet long, but i would never had got in the summerhouse!!!
what's the link to your build?