Chiller Teco Tank TK 150: in depth review

The Probe

A relevant manufacture detail is the positioning of the temperature probe. Teco inserts the probe in the inflow pipe to make sure the temperature registered is the actual one in the tank which hasn’t been cooled yet. This is one of the reasons why we cannot notice a drop in temperature on the display shortly after turning the chiller on.

In fact, if the probe was inserted in the outflow pipe, it would read a lower temperature shortly after having turned the chiller on, but it would not be the same in the tank. This could lead to frequent on/off cycles of the unit without an actual lowering the tank temperature.

Installation

The installation is very easy as we just need to connect the in/out tubes and connecting the inflow tube to a return pump (or a deviation of the existing return pump).

Before each use I strongly recommend a cleaning cycle: we remove it from the sump and insert the pump and tubes in a water bucket with muriatic acid (hydrogen chloride) at 5% concentration then let everything run for 10 minutes to let it dissolve any trace of limescale. Lastly, we need to wash everything out with tap water only in the bucket, no need to use RO water.

Once functioning with an adequate return pump – Teco recommends a minimum of 400 l/h – we can notice the overall low noise, mostly coming from the fan rather than the compressor.

The display shows constantly the temperature measured from the inflow pipe, with an accuracy to the decimal places. We can set the control temperature to the decimal place as well. The chiller starts working at one degree deviation from our desired temperature. We can modify this to half degree by pressing and holding the button set, but Teco strongly advise against it as it could lead to a series of on/off cycles that could compromise the compressor. It’s best for the refrigerator to be on for hours rather than being switched on and off every 15 minutes.

To set the temperature we just need to push the button “set” for 3 seconds while the chiller is on, when the display starts blinking we can set the temperature using the two arrow buttons.

The Trial

I have used Teco Tank TK 150 for a long while on my SPS 400 litres tank, even though it was heavily infested by dinoflagellates.

As you can see the tank was lighted by 3 Ecotech Marine Radion, two G2 (italian review) and one G2 PRO (italian review), for a 400 litres tank with a 1,5 w per litre thermal capacity at the lamps’ maximum power.

It was a challenging trial for the under-dimensioned TK 150, made even more difficult by the heath produced by 3 LED lamps with a maximum power of 170w each, for a total of 510 watt! That is why the system was set to work in synergy with the two fans Teco E-Chill (review) working as a first cooling stage and the TK 150 functioning when the E-Chill was not sufficient.

Considering that we are talking about Rimini, Italy, where the summer temperature can easily go over 30°, the system as we planned it didn’t have any problems, actually it was really advantageous.

I set the Teco E-Chill at 26,6 degrees, so the tank temperature can reach the 27,5 degrees before the fan starts working, while the Teco TK 150 was set at 27,5° so it would switch on at 28,5 degrees and work in synergy with the fans until the temperature would be sufficiently low at 26,5° for the E-Chill and 27,5° for the TK 150 respectively.

The system working this way has the advantage of the fans functioning most of the time, consuming less electricity, but when needed in case of particularly high temperature the chiller helps them. On its own the TK 150 would be too small, but the two units working together do an efficient job. This way I saved money by buying a smaller chiller and I have two cooling systems which can work independently in case of faults or other misfortunes.
I can also switch the units functioning order by putting the chiller before the fans: this way I can save top-off for when I am not home for holidays.

Remember this chiller has an electrical refrigerating power of 150w only, nevertheless it manages to keep cool a 400 l tank in a plus 30° environment, together with the Teco E-Chill fans.

How it works

As I said before, the controller has an intervention cycle of 1°C: by setting 27°C the chiller would start working at the temperature set plus 1°C (28°C) and it would turn off once the water temperature reaches the 27°C. The temperature reading is accurate to the decimal place, allowing us to read and follow the decreasing tank temperature.

The 1°C cycle could seem a bit too wide, but this happens only if the cooler is over-dimensioned compared to the tank, in which case we would have more frequent oscillations because of its remarkable cooling power. Anyway, we can always set the temperature to a half degree range.