Chiller Teco Tank TK 150: in depth review

The Noise

One of the biggest worry for all aquarists is the noise, and any chiller is known to be not very silent.  Apart from those who can afford to install this accessory outside their home, or in a dedicated room (here I’d like to remember our friend Lumaz‘s project) the noise becomes a very important characteristic to consider.

In my case the chiller was installed inside the aquarium cabinet.

To measure the noise I used, as always, the professional phonometer VOLTCRAFT 320, digital phonometer IEC 651 Type II  which has been sufficiently accurate seeing the results. Considering the type of noise we needed to measure, all the measures were recorded with dBA wave attenuation. The measurements were taken with closed windows, the phonometer placed on a tripod 1 meter distant, and with minimum intervals of 120 seconds between measurements, with the following results:

Environmental noise with the skimmer not functioning.

Skimmer functioning, chiller off, cabinet doors closed.

Skimmer functioning, chiller on, cabinet doors closed.

Skimmer on, chiller on, cabinet doors open.

Let’s compare these measurements with other chillers tested in the past:

The measurements were taken from different tanks set-ups, but it still is clearly evident that the TK 150 is the most silent one, functioning on the most silent of the four tanks. The difference is so relevant that we can almost say the noise is not audible.

In fact Teco TK 150 only added +2dB to the system when on, against the 5,6dB of bigger the TK 500, 12,3dB of the older TR 15 and the 3,4 dB of the Titan 250.

The difference was not unexpected as the other chillers are much stronger, but we really find ourselves if front of a silent chiller, so silent that while using it I sometimes had to go and check that it was actually on.

You should consider the environmental conditions in which the measurements were taken: in other situations with more or less reinforcements of the various noise frequencies, the noise measured could be very different.

Power consumption

Choosing a chiller also includes evaluating its power consumption. We know too well how our tanks’ power consumption can be seen on the electricity bill… so we should consider this characteristic before adding any accessory to our layout.

Teco provides its TK 150 with a refrigerating power of 150 watt, a really low absolute and relative value, so the effective consumption won’t be very high.

In any case the coolers power consumption is usually much lower of what we’d expect. 150 watt are really not that much, even considering the warmer seasons when the chiller could be functioning up to 8 hours per day it still translates to around 32 cent spent.

Important: water flow inside the chiller and pump choice.

The water velocity inside the refrigerator is a very important value. We’d usually think that this would not be particularly relevant because the higher the speed the higher the quantity of water that would go through it. This is usually thought to be equivalent to the case where the flow is slower, the water quantity going through the chiller would be less but more refrigerated.

This reasoning, when talking about tank chillers of any brand, is simply wrong.

Thinking that way, in fact, we don’t consider the refrigerator efficiency, which grows with increasing water temperature. In other words: while the water enters the chiller it is cooled down, but if that was with a slow flow it would be cooler sooner, and then the chiller would need to work much harder to cool it down even more; while if the water flow was higher the water would be cooled but not too much, and the chiller intervention would be maximized.

That is to say that the higher the flow, or rather the more powerful the pump, the better the chiller efficiency. This would lead to the water cooled down more rapidly and believe me, the difference is not small as the overall efficiency can actually double.

Teco recommends to use a pump with an affective rate of at least 400 liters per hour, but seen our last considerations we could use a much stronger pump to obtain many benefits. In my tank I used the Sicce Syncra 1.5 with a rate of 1350l/h (reviewed here) and a power consumption of 23 w (around 0.15 € per day in Italy).

To those who can install the refrigerator outside the tank room I recommend to measure the real rate of the return water in the sump, as the distance and the tube curves necessary to connect your chiller would reduce the real flow rate. I also recommend to protect it from harsh conditions and from direct sunlight, which could impoverish its performance and also ruin the unit itself, Teco in fact recommends as an inside unit.