Habitat - Indoor :: The new dock is here!

[Ashley]

Bowser's new dock/ramp is here at last!
It looks so nice in the tank, and it's made of plexiglass (or something similar) so she cannot bit pieces off like she did with her old Zoomed dock.





Here's the bad news....Bowser won't come near it!
She will examine it every now and then, but each time she slowly backs away and now she's staying on the other side of the tank more.
In fact, last night she slept while holding on to the filter tube. She normally doesn't hang around the filter.
I've been able to lure her up the ramp and to the base of the dock by using her favorite pellets, but she won't stay there for long.

In the meantime she's been biting her decorative cave/rock, attacking the palm tree, knocked over the little lounge chair, and removed the cuttlebone from its clip.

My mom said that I need to find a turtle psychiatrist. LOL

[marisa]

She just needs some time to adjust to a new object in the tank. Make sure the basking area temp is in a good range.

[Ashley]

I hope that's the case!
But when we got this tank over a month ago and put a brand new dock, new filter, new everything really, she immediately swam up to the dock and was basking within a few hours of exploration.

With this one, she goes up to the bottom corner of the ramp and looks at it very closely, then suddenly "backpedals" like she's scared.

And the temp is good...the lamps are reaching the base and the platform.

[Ashley]

UPDATE!!!!


She finally got on the dock last night, around 12:30am.
I was just about to go to bed, but once she started up there I left her alone and stayed up well past 1am.
She's been on there 3 times already today, and is currently enjoying it right now.
Oh, and she slept on the underwater part of the ramp last night. Too cute!

When she climbs up there she lets out a big yawn and looks around.

Another thing...she's finally pooping normal!
No more foam/cork dock poo.
Seriously, it got to the point where you couldn't tell the difference between her poo and pieces of the dock.
The all floated together.

[my.lovely.turtle.]

Yay! Sounds like everything is going well! Awesome!

[Ashley]

Pellet snatching!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VraLd8UOVvo[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzAxW6H17D0[/youtube]

[Jaysea]

Yay! and looks so happy up there

[steve]

I guess she officially approves

[Jaysea]

The more i look at this ramp the more i'm liking it, starting to make me consider getting one.

[LaurL55]

My turtle loves this ramp!!! Your turtle is soooo cute.

[Ashley]

I really love this ramp!
We even put a little food dish up there with some water and pellets and she is eats from it quite regularly.
This is great for feeding the pellets that break up easily (like the Zoomed ones), since she likes to shred them up and leave bits everywhere.

Bowser basks all morning into the afternoon, then swims late afternoon and all evening until about 12:30am, just as I want to go to bed. She decides to climb up there and go to sleep under the warmth. It's so precious and I can't dare turn the lights off then, so therefore I stay up later than I'd like to.

I mean, how can you disturb this?

[steve]

She looks very relaxed

How do you think the platform will do once she's twice her current size?

[Ashley]

The suction cups (6 of them) are very strong so I'm not worried about it slipping. The suction cups do make it difficult to move and clean, so fingernails or a plastic knife are needed to pry them off.
But the top platform is a bit small, and it does bend a bit when she gets on it. Not a lot, but you do see it move. So yeah, this wouldn't be big enough for a fully grown RES.
This is the biggest of these type of docks.

[gdesigner]

I am really considering buying this dock of of amazon. I wonder how the medium one would fare for my 3.5 inch Spike.

[steve]

Let us know how it works out