. i measured from my floor to how high i wanted the pole to be. Then i measured how far over the tank I wanted to go. Had them bend the pole to equal height, then had them trim the end to length. I then went over and bought a rubber end from their hardware section (same thing you would slide over the end of a chair to keep it from scratching the floor) to cover the cut ends.
. gotta get a pretty long one I guess. the closet pole bit was the easiest/cheapest I could find