Penn-Plax Aquatic Turtle Pier Basking Platform

I looked around everywhere (it felt like) for a good and sturdy set up for my fire bellied toad tank. I found the foam-floating turtle docks, which felt like they may fall apart. The magnetic turtle docks, which I did accidentally drop one in the pet store and it chipped/broke! (oops) I finally found this gem online – and it is PERFECT!

This product is really easy to set up (my 8 year old put it together for me), and provides a sturdy feeding/lounging dock for my fire-bellied toads. I have it in a 20-gallon-long aquarium, which the dimensions are 30″ x 12″ x 12″. You need at least this size of tank for this prodcut. I uploaded a picture so you can see what it looks like. It fits perfectly, with just a tiny bit of room along the 3 sides of this aquarium – it is snug, but doesn’t actually rub up or touch against the sides. When in place, it takes up about 60% of the surface of the water, which is exactly what I was looking for, but still provides swimming area for the frogs underneath the dock and on the other side of the tank. I combined this product with a Tetra Decorative Reptile Filter for Aquariums up to 55 Gallons(available on Amazon and way cheaper than what I paid at the local pet store) which is a filter and beautiful waterfall feature, a background cling, a screen top for the 20-gallon-long aquarium, a few dollar-store bags of river rocks for the bottom (you don’t want anything that the toads can accidentally injest), a cheap plastic plant, a rather heavy rock/hide on the turtle-pier (along with some of the river rocks) for extra space to hide and decoration (the pier is still completely sturdy under this weight), and a couple of philodendron starts given to me by a co-worker. I think it is a pretty great set-up.

This product comes with extenders for the suction-cup columns that keep it in place, so if you have a taller/higher tank, you can make the pier float higher. They are included in the package. Mine is shown with the shorter columns – and they come up right to the screen-top I have on the aquarium. The screen touches them, but they are not pushing up the screen as to allow the frogs to escape.

turtles love it good size for big turtles i have mainland painted turtles they swim up on it one big shell one small shell both fit get it floats good in water very strudy had for 6 months

I have looked for years for a good, stable floating dock/log for my two False Mississippi Map turtles. One of my turtles wasn’t having luck getting on and staying dry with my old dock so I knew I needed to start looking again (shell condition issues).

This product is awesome! I love how big it is and how well it fit into my 50 gallon aquarium.

I did not like the legs. They were ugly with the extra bar towards the base and the legs only held it in place not up. After being frustrated that the suction cups weren’t working and the bar was ugly I just took it apart and put the dock and ladder in. My filter has a strong current so it helps keep in in the one end of the aquarium.

You can see in the pictures that both of my turtles fit on it together and it does not sink. Reading reviews before I bought this I was worried it may sink with both of them on it, but so far, so good!

Now my turtles have extra space to swim and I don’t have to look at the legs/bar that originally came with the dock. I also like that the dock is a hard plastic because I can just throw it in the dishwasher once and a while to really get it clean!

One thing I can’t understand in the design is the gully for rocks. This is a floating dock so WHY would you want to add weight to it? This is my biggest complaint about the product. Now it’s just empty and a waste of space. The only weight added to this dock should be the turtle(s). This is also why looking at pictures I thought the legs of this dock held up the platform-they could carry the weight of turtle(s) and the rocks. I was wrong- it truly is a floating dock.

Works really well for what I needed but a lot of the parts I didn’t end up using. Really glad it is SO big and stays afloat.

2021: I ordered a 2nd one because my turtles need to be separated. It is painted very bright colors compared to my first one. Just want to warn ppl that you may get a Christmas dock lol (3rd picture).

No hemos podido estrenarla de manera adecuada porque el estanque de mis tortugas es pequeño para la plataforma y les queda poco espacio alrededor para maniobrar. Aún así, lo pongo un rato para que tomen el sol y están muy a gusto en esta. Ahora que me llegue su estanque más grande podremos evaluarlo a mayor detalle. Pero, mientras tanto, le doy una buena calificación porque mis tortugas lo están disfrutando.

(For reference, he’s in what I believe is somewhere between 150-200 gallon tank) It’s good but this big guy sinks it a bit. I put his old ZooMed basking spot underneath it to help with buoyancy (as seen in a different review of this product) and it seems to be helping a bit. Within the first few hours of it being in his tank, he managed to pop off the ramp so if you have a way to secure the ramp in place then I would suggest doing so. I was a little hesitant at first to purchase it as i was worried it would be too small but after reading reviews and looking at the measurements provided in the pictures, I decided to try it. It’s the perfect size for him and he’s able to fully turn around on it if needed. He struggles a little bit to get on due to the ramp be a little on the smaller side and kinda poorly made but, he is in fact able to get on it after using a little strength. He likes to try and pop the suction cups off the bottom and has nearly gotten himself stuck under the bottom bars so to fix that we put his log to kinda block him from doing that. The gravel chamber holds water so i would recommend drilling small drain holes in that to keep it from holding any unfiltered water.