OASE Indoor Aquatics Biomaster Thermo 600

This filter is fantastic! I own a fluval FX4 and it's a power house of a filter, but cleaning it is a major job. This filter with it's pre-filter clean out makes the maintenance so easy. The filter is made of real quality parts and materials. It was easy to setup and it is extremely quiet. There are other people who have said they are having problems with air bubbles. This is not the case here. Yes you do get some air purge after you do maintenance but it's all gone after a short period. If you follow the setup exactly, this filter will perform wonderfully. My FX4 purges more air bubbles than my Oase. Great product, highly recommended....

This is the single most amazing canister filter that I have ever owned. It is well thought out, well constructed, and so easy to maintain. The simplicity involved in maintenance is absolutely welcomed by fish keeping veterans and something that the newest hobbyist will enjoy as well. Also, with the integrated heater in the canister, there is one less piece of equipment hanging in your aquarium.This filter comes with a pre-filter that is cleaned weekly by simply sliding a lock lever, removing it, and rinsing the sponges in a bucket of aquarium water. My weekly maintenance on this filter takes me around 5-10minutes at the absolute most. If it is a heavy maintenance week, I simply disconnect my hoses with a single lever, and carry it into the bathroom where I can easily disassemble and clean all of the sponges. The filter comes with a couple of bags of a plastic filter media to be used for your biologic filtration, but I replaced it all with Seachem Matrix. Overall you can get a gallon of Matrix into this canister and supercharge your filter.The only real "flaw" that I have found so far is that the pre-filter sponges are a little too fine. I would recommend either cutting replacements out of the coarse sponges included with this filter, or simply order 30ppi replacements from Amazon or Oase. The sponges included for the pre-filter are 45 ppi and that have a tendency to fill quickly which starves the circulation for this filter. Aside from that this thing is an absolute dream of a filter.

i have a 350 thermal on our 36 gallon and a 600 thermal on our 75 gallon. The prefilter feature is great and i love the heater in the filter. Both filters are with sponges in bottom tray and biohome in the rest of the trays. The flow on the 36 gallon with 350 thermal is excellent the 75 gallon with biomaster thermal 600 i wish had a little more flow. Both filters are going through a uv sterilizer on the out line. Heater seems to work perfectly on both units. i had an issue getting the rubber feet to stay on the 600 but other than that and wishing for more flow on the 75 gallon. i am happy with both units. Tip if your impeller is rattling you most likely have water in the head take some water out of the canister and restart it. Both units are very, almost dead quiet make the units perfect for a bedroom. I recommend replacing the 60ppi pre filter sponges with the 40ppi replacements seems to help a little with flow. Over all the biomasters are good filters.

Updated: As others have noted, this filter (600 Thermo) pulls in air from a leak in the canister. This results in air bubbles getting purged in the tank on a regular basis and the increased noise associated with air in the impeller. This also tends to reduce the lifespan of the impeller. I did contact Oase and they sent a brand new pump assembly but it has the exact problem. Of course, I'm now outside the return window and OASE is going back over basic troubleshooting steps instead of answering my questions about a reund or exchange for a smaller/non thermo unit. Beware that the 600 thermo seems to have this issue and if you experience it, return the filter vs getting the runaround from the manufacturer. This filter replaced another brand with similar flow rates and it did not have issues so this can't be something wrong with my intake.

Using the 600 on a 40G breeder tank for over a year. Basically, I have this canister feed a 25 watt UV & a MacroAlgae reactor that has Cheato algae in it. I use the pre filter sponges & the 1st thin brown sponge. The rest of the trays have 5lbs of biohome branded biomedia. That leaves a tray for any other media of your choosing. I clean the easy accessible pre filter every couple weeks. After a year, I replaced the brown sponge & rinse the biomedia with tank water, that's it. I have never had a nitrate issue. You can't hear it running, the flow rate is around 300gph, perfect for the UV & Algae Reactor, & maintenance is easy. If you let the prefilter go too long without rinsing, the flow is diminished. Stay on top of rinsing the prefilter. The prefilter is simple to clean, unplug the filter, unlock the plumbing lines, the unlock the prefilter tube and remove. You don't even have to take the top off the top of the canister to service.

I have owned the 600 for almost 2 years now - This unit is somewhat hard to clean - cleaning a canister is a messy job so be prepared to be at a slopsink or something. My biggest issue is to start this unit up it can be a pain in the butt to get it primed and flowing, even after filling the canister with water. Often after you get everything back together and get it all set back up plug it in and it just wont flow or seems to have no power. I believe this is a trapped air problem but the hand pump doesn't move enough air to really help much leaving you pumping it over and over.The levers on this unit have sticking issues when trying to slide them and can be a major scrape hazard for your hands against the latches, be careful.The heater works well, once the system is up and running it does the job well, come cleaning time though its a process to get everything back up and going.