Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Because there are so few choices for docks for larger turtles I have made a few DIY different versions from Home Depot and Michaels etc. This dock looked like it had potential, even just for parts, particularly the dock platform. My turtle is about 8 inches long and fairly heavy. He also likes to spread out his limbs one situated on his dock, so he needs a platform with a larger surface area. The other floating docks available out there are way too small. I had made some stationary docks that he liked, but I was looking for a floating dock that changes with the water evaporation, meaning less maintenance on keeping a consistent water level. Upon reading the other reviews, I knew in advance that his weight would be a problem with the stability of this dock. The first thing I did was cut pieces of styrofoam bought at Michael's and filled in the underside of the platform and reinforced the ramp from underneath. This worked very well! Holds a lot of weight now. I assembled and put the whole dock in the tank. I realized immediately that the support structure underneath was terrible. It completely blocks off that whole area under the dock for my turtle. He can't fit in any spaces under the dock anymore, essentially losing a large part of his tank space. So I removed the support structure and just kept the four pillars and upper dock. The pillars are no longer that stable, but I suction cupped and cable tied the pillars closest to the tank wall. Only one side needs to be stabilized. The other two are actually unnecessary. Like how the ZooMed floating docks are only attached to the glass on one side. I kept the out two pillars just for looks. With this set up, my guy is pretty happy and it functions well. Oh, the little ditch on the till that you can put rocks in to counterbalance the turtle weight sucks. I wish it didn't have this feature. It just collects water and I don't like sitting the sitting water in there. Hope this helps!