The Teco Tank TK150 Nano chiller is the sort of engineering marvel that illustrates clearly why Teco is one the most esteemed designers and manufacturers of high quality aquarium chillers. The new Teco SeaChill Tank series of chillers includes many novel models of aquarium cooling devices but the smallest in the line, the Teco TK150 stands out for a most ingenious design.
The smallest chiller in Teco’s SeaChill Tank line is the TK150 which is about as small as a thermoelectric chiller, but is actually a fully fledged compressor chiller. Teco has managed to make the TK150 chiller so small by actually building the condensor coils for heat exchanging into the frame – or more simply put – the body of the TK150 is the condensor coils.
The huge surface area created by the integrated heat exchanger and body frame allows the inside of the chiller to be taken up by core components like plumbing, compressor and temperature controller. Meanwhile the widely spaced tube “fins” of the heat exchanger allows incredible air flow while also preventing clogging. The eye-catching design of the Teco TK150 chiller reminds of of other dual purpose engineering such as the iPhone 4 which wrapped its antenna all around the perimeter of the iconic smartphone.
While small, the TK150 chiller can still manage a respectable ten degree Fahrenheit pulldown at an ambient room temperature of 86F and should be suitable for cooling warm reef tanks in the 40 to 60 gallon range. An integrated temperature controller on the front of the chiller gives the user access to the various cooling functions and the small footprint allows the smallest SeaChill to fit inside the small stands of tanks for which it is intended.
The small size of the Teco SeaChill TK150 is matched by an equally small price of $499 which makes this the most affordable aquarium cooling device with an actual compressor, from a dedicated chiller manufacturer. While it had been a while since we’ve heard of new developments from Teco, their MACNA booth and completely new line up of innovative chillers is encouraging for the respected chiller manufacturer so we expect to see a lot more of Teco in the United States in the future. [Teco]
