I would like to give a review for a certain product that I had previously purchased for my two RES turtles, Nibbles and Swimmer. My feedback will be on the product Zoo Med Turtle Dock.
Anything I write here is a complete bias and should be taken with a grain of salt. Others may have had a better experience with this product, but I have not and my purpose is to only inform those of what the worst case scenarios are for using the product.
Function:
It's purpose is to serve as a basking are for the turtles. It can also be used as an underwater shading if you find the temperature of the water are warm and your turtles are lingering under this area.
Preparation:
It's not too difficult to install. Not many prefer the suctions that are installed on the holder which helps hold the dock in place. If you are already encountering issues with the product this early, then that's where it will go downhill fast. I had the holder and suctions attached just fine, but when I went to rinsing the dock (as instructed) I noticed something odd - Small black particles were falling off the surface to my surprise. I slid a finger over the surface and found that they were in fact, from the surface of the dock and I wasn't sure if I was rinsing it correctly, or if I was holding it in the correct position for the water to run over it.
Maintenance:
The dock doesn't get dirty as frequently as the water so as long as you are not feeding your turtles over it and they are not excreting their waste on it.
My problem with the black particles continues here. The particles began sticking to my turtles after they had first basked on it. I discovered that when I moved them to the smaller tank for feeding. Turtle pellet bits and black debris were sinking to the bottom. I was agitated by the possibly of them ingesting those ... whatever material those black particles may be, so I ended up washing the dock thoroughly, and letting it dry before drying it off with a towel and ensuring that there were no excess bits on them that could get onto the turtles or the water.
Then there's the possible of the suctions loosing it's function it uses 4 suctions to hold up the dock, and if you have 2 or more of it not functioning properly then it will certainly give your turtles a hard time climbing onto it if they haven't already.
Convenience:
I'm talking about how convenient it is for our turtles to use it for it's purpose without difficulty ... which was not for my turtles. Note that the dock is fairly uneven in height, so there will be areas where the base is low enough for the turtles to climb on, while others they will need to put a huge strain on their arms just to get on. The dock I had purchased was a small size, but even then it was difficult for my baby turtles to climb on. The only sides where they could access the basking spot was on the shorter ends of the dock.
The next issue is the small gap between the holders that are attached to the wall and the dock. One of my turtles had been caught between the gap, likely due to them believing they could climb on that way and with their size (babies) they managed to get stuck between there. I had to take it apart just to free the lil' guy. I'm only fortunate that he didn't suffer any scratching or injuries on their shell.
The only pros about this is that the surface of the dock is fairly smooth and only slightly lumped, so they won't have a rough time moving around on the dock.
I only hope that it's because the dock is not designed for baby turtles that are less than 2 in. in diamter of their shell. It was not convenient for my turtles to use.
All in all, using this product was not a good experience for me.
Rating: 2/5 stars
