Habitat - Indoor :: Wooden Basking Areas

[froggie234]

Hello, my husband is in the process of building a wooden basking area for our turtle. He did a great job on the platform and it is secure, but he is having a problem installing a ramp to go onto the platform. He made one out of wood, but I told him it would warp in the water. It is also not working as well and is too large. I was wondering if anyone else has a wooden basking area and how they made their ramp. There has got to be something better than wood to use. I cannot find any cork bark around here, except at PetSmart and their pieces are too small for us to use. Would plexiglass work as a ramp? If anyone has experience with this, please help!

[BullDog]

Plexiglass would work well. Most people use aquarium silicon to stick small rocks on to the plexi for grip.

Recently, I think I read someone was thinking of trying eggcrate for a ramp for their wooden basking area. Not sure who it was, or if then ended up doing it though.

[Spookster]

Yes you should use plexiglass verses wood. The wood will deteriorate in the water. Depending on how your basking platform is built you can use rustproof metal brackets bent at an angle in the middle to bolt the ramp to that and then bolt the other end of the brackets to the platform.

[Doc_Moore_J]

I have a wooden basking area (no wood touching water though, it is external), it seems like it would hold the heat in better then plexiglass would. For the ramp, I originally had these little ramps made out of a hard plastic that looked like tree bark (boguth at pet store), but Buddy would slide down them and it would make an aweful grating sound so I knew it had to be uncomfortable, so I replaced those ramps with egg crate, covered in a soft matting used in bathtubs, or kitchen areas. It was nice and soft and he could get a good grip on them and climb easily, even when he was sick he had no problems getting in and out of his area.

[grey goose]

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13965

Lot's of pictures on this thread.

[Starchick]

I just built one and used an old zoomed dock, nailed on at an angle and glued in place. Not sure what your setup is like but if it would work for you, the dock would be better than plexi, as it's rough enough for the turtle to grip and the corners are rounded. If you're going to use plexi, you can run lines of aquarium silicone across it to make treads.

[marisa]

Corkbark: www.blackjungle.com (Not cheap, but makes a wonderful and natural-looking basking area ).

[froggie234]

Doc Moore,

How did you secure the egg crate to the wood? Do you have any pics? That sounds like a good idea.