You'll have to bear with me as I don't know how to insert text between pics and put it al in one post so I either do each step in a seperate post, or do all the descriptions at the top and a handful of pics in the bottom of each...
this is actually one of two stands as I have two tanks I'm building ( did I mention that? can't remember) but figured I would just journal one of them since other than a slight dimension difference in width, they are both being built the same way.
as I mentioned the tank for this one is a 60"x24" foot print so I'm buildong the stand to be 62"x26" to give myself some breathing room on either side. It's going to be your typical top build a top frame, build a bottom frame and join them together.
To figure out what height to make it I went to Big Al's and walked around their showroom with a tape measure to find out what height their tanks were at and then add or subtract as I saw fit (ie I want it higher than this..this one is too high). I strongly suggest this because what may seem right on paper or sound right based on numbers can be a world of difference once it's built. The best example I can give you of this is that if I were to tell you I was going to build you a desk 29" high and you took a look at that measurement on a tape measure (go ahead, get a tape and pull out 29", I'll wait...) most people would think it was ridiculously low and yet standard height for most desks, home or office is 28"-29".
Another thing to watch for if you go to Big Al's like I did is that they put their tanks on stands, but the stands themselves are on a 4 or 5" riser for display so you have to meaure from tank to floor, not just the height of the stand (or simply read the stand dimesions) or else your tank will be 4" below where you thought it would be.
The height of mine is based on an aproximation of the height I wanted taking into consideration casters on the bottom, and the fact that where one of the tanks is going is in front of a set of switches and a thermostat that I had to drop a couple inches for so it wouldn't block them, and then planned the second stand so that the top of both tanks would be roughly the same height (both are going in the living room but one tank is 4" higher than the other).
Lastly the other dimesion that I take into account when measuring for a stand, as silly as it sounds, is to measure the height from the floor to your armpit. Take that measurement and subtract the height of your tank and take that height into consideration for the top of your stand . I know it sounds silly but it beats building a stand and then not being able to reach into your tank the first time you drop something because the rim of the tank is 4" higher than your armpit or needing a step stool eveytime you want to do something in the tank....