Turtle Platform Craft

We’ve had our turtle over 10 years now and we’ve never found a ramp/basking area that we really liked or felt worked as well as it should.

So it was about time we built one!

We bought Mitch in 2012, as we rented an apartment and were only allowed a fish tank, but we wanted an animal together. We researched the smallest species of turtle that you could keep as a pet and we decided on a Common musk turtle. Sadly we didn't look into rescuing turtles, plus I wouldn't have known where to look. We would have loved to have rescued and would do in the future if we were to consider another one. 

Mitch was the size of a 20 pence piece when we took her home, we didn't know her gender as it is quite difficult to tell when they are so small. We got the tank ready, with filter and heater, making sure she had space to climb out of the water and bask when she wanted. 

When she was this small most ornaments or rocks are a suitable size as a basking spot! 

As she grew we looked into larger platforms and ramps and couldn't find many suitable. We did have a couple of branded ones but they were becoming harder to come by and the prices were soaring. You shouldn't need to replace them very often, but even after a certain amount of cleaning we felt they needed to be replaced after a while. It was also an issue of them staying put, some would be attached by suction cups and others magnets, they would ping off or come away with the weight of a climbing turtle so weren't a permanent solution.

We measured our tank and worked out how much space out of the water we would like her to have - maybe a third of the tank length. It needed to be high up near the basking lights but not high enough that she'd be able to climb out.

Once we worked out all the measurements and how much we’d need, we grabbed all the items we needed.

1x Long plastic pipe (which we cut down into 8 pieces. Lengths were cut to around - 4x 35cm for the ramp height, 2x 40cm for the length and 2x 32cm for the depth.)

8x Corner pipe connectors,

2x plastic mesh/egg crate (we did order more if we decided to add a ramp up to the platform)

1x Tube of non-toxic tank silicone.

1x Long cable ties

I’ve added a piece of artificial, aquarium grass, on top of the mesh to make sure she doesn’t get her feet/claws caught.

I will need to switch the grass out, as it has shredded over time and maybe add some fake foliage around the piping it may look more attractive.

She seems to be liking it so far and has been noticeably basking a lot more.