Oase is a famous and trusted brand in the aquarium community. It has been on the market for years and started out as a brand for ponds. Today I’ll take a look at the Oase Filtrosmart 100 (thermo).

Specifications:

Specifications:

What’s in the box?

  • Size: 192 x 190 x 312 mm (7.5 x 7.4 x 12″)
  • Power consumption pump: 11W
  • Power heater: 100W
  • Length electricity cable: 1.5m (4.9 Feet)
  • Weight: 1.5kg (3,3LB)
  • Oase Filtrosmart filter
  • Biological filter media (biorings)
  • Filter intake and outtake tubes
  • 2 hoses (16mm)
  • Mechinal filter media (sponges)

Design

The Oase Filtrosmart has a sleek design and is therefore extremely compact. This is a huge benefit for people who don’t have a lot of space for a cannister filter. It also filters tanks up to 100L (20G).

The filter has two main parts. First of all, the lid. It contains all the essential equipment to make the filter work. These are:

  • The Powerhead
  • The hose connection
  • The heater
  • The Power cables.

On the sides of the lid, you’ll find the handles to connect the lid to the canister filter itself.

The canister contains 3 compartments, two of those are meant for the mechanical filtration and one compartment is meant for the biological filter media. You can customise this to your own needs if you want to. Oase claims that the filter is designed in a such a way that the water is evenly disturbed across the compartments for optimal filtration.

The hoses are 12 / 16 mm and give therefore a lot of options in therms of things like lily pipes, inline co2 diffusers and it’s super easy to adapt them to a smaller hose size. If you are looking for lily pipes that don’t break your bank, check out my cheap lily pipes review here.

The heater

The reason why I personally bought the Oase Filtrosmart 100 thermo, was the heater. I want to get rid of as much equipment in the tank as I personally can and putting the heater inside the filter is a great way to free up space inside the tank. The heater is great, and works like it should work.

What I Like

The filter is compact, this frees up space inside my aquarium cabinet and is super powerful at the same time. The fact that the heater is inside of the filter frees up a lot of space inside the tank and it has a cleaner look because of it. There are multiple ways to reduce or increase the water flow (either trough the knob on the lid or trough the included hose connecters). This is great for people who have a nano tank. The filter vents itself and is super easy in maintenance. 0

What I don’t like

The filter has a few flaws that you should be aware about. First of all, it’s noisy. No, I’m not talking about water movement, you can hear the filter working. Keep this in mind if you want to use this filter in a tank that’s in your bedroom for example. There is a easy fix though, a friend of mine bought some cheap sound isolation foam and but it inside his aquarium cabinet and this fixed the noise problem.

Second of all, although it vents itself, the progress is not perfect. The canister has to be filled to the knock with water in order to work. This can be a very annoying process.

Should I buy this filter?

If you are looking for a reliable canister filter with a small footprint, and a built in heater, this filter might be the one for you. it’s customisable, energy efficient and can be used for a nano tank. It’s not super expensive either.