I'd like to make thing simple or it's "cry me a river" when it comes to cleaning time. Pond, you can get away with being lazy, not for aquarium. It only take few months or sometimes few weeks to clean all equipments and containers. I made a huge mistake when I started out with barrels on 4ft shelfs . Water change and cleaning are the pain in the but$ of this hobby. But I'd call it a success if one day, I could get away without water change, it's WIP.
Good luck and grow some bad a$$ acros :-)