Teclima Micro vs. Azoo Thermoelectric

Chilling thoughts....

Trying to decide on which chiller to purchase for my 15gal nano? My tank gets over 85 degrees on summer days! I have an air conditioned home and keep the thermostat around 76-78.

The source of the heat is of course my lights. I am running 2x36 watt CF's in a custom hood (with some ventillation), all from AHS. I have been running the lights in the evening and at night to keep the heat down but this sux! Need the lights on in the day time and early evening so I can enjoy the reef. So hence the justification for a chiller.

The Azoo Thermoelectric chiller is about $299.00 and has a recommended flow rate of 475 GPH. This seems a bit high for my tank?

The Teclima micro seems to be steady at about $395.00 and has a recommended flow rate of about 180 GPH. This seems to be about the right flow rate for my tank.

Both units have digital controls and are also heaters.

My question is if the 475 GPH of the Azoo chiller is too high for a 15 gal tank? Can the chiller be efficiently run at a lower flow rate? Would love to hear from any who have had experience with these type chillers.

have u tried raising the hood and adding fans?? ALOT cheaper than chillers. Also, have you looked at the ice probe chiller? a couple people use em on here, do a search if interested. I would try raising the hood a couple inches and adding two small fans in the hood. HTH

btw, that is ALOT of xenia

Originally posted by Spencerx

btw, that is ALOT of xenia

Indeed! The stuff is like reef kudzu. I have traded it off about 3 or four times over the last year. I guess the iodine in the Eco Systems Reef Solution gives 'em a major boost. I have cut back on the dosing to in between water changes. I do water changes on the 10th, 20th and 30th of each month. I have noticed a drastic difference in the Xenia growth after I started this schedule. The LFS takes in the stuff for credit and I have stocked my freshwater tanks almost exclusively that way.

Originally posted by Spencerx

have u tried raising the hood and adding fans??

Gonna try and raise the lights off the glass a bit to reduce the temp. Have thought about this, just need to try it. The hood has decent vents on top that allows a good amount of heat to rise off.

My other goal with reducing the temp is to be able to keep a couple of Catalina Gobies so I am trying to get down to at least the 76 degree range.

iceprobe works well but the teclima is good too. I am considering putting my old teclima on the new 26 to add flow, chill, heat, add space by not using the heater in the tank and free up the hob for other uses.

Hi Sammy,

I have a Teclima Micro hooked up to my 18 gal. via aqua tank and I think it's runs ok. I live in New Orleans and it gets pretty hot and humid down here. My central AC runs at 78F during the day but since my nano is located upstairs, my room temp is usually about 81F while it's 78F downstairs by the AC thermostat. As for the lighting specs. on my nano, I use 2X36w and a 1X96w PC. I also have an aqua 201 for flow, maxi-jet 1200 to break surface water, maxi 900 for Chiller , and 600 for HOB refugium running in the tank. For the performance on the Teclima, my first thought on it was that it really sucked. I used a maxi-jet 900 to push the water into the teclima and for the first two days, it barely kept my tank below 84F during midday. My before chiller tank temp was 86F. Since then, the highest the tank temp ever been is around 83F. Most of the time it is around 81.5F but the chiller runs constantly. At night when the main tank lights are off, the temperature goes down to about 78.5F with the HOB 32w refugium lights running at night. I've set the Chiller temps to be at 78.1F and i've only once seen it reach that temp. and automatically turn off. That is my experience so far with the Chiller. I've had it for about 2 weeks already. Nice chiller but kinda runs too much for me for the money spent on it.

Like Crak mentioned, for a nano tank the IceProbe chiller is a lot cheaper, $99 for chiller and $50 for the temp controller. i know that's not what your asking, but just a suggestions.

Couple things -

1- Your hood is waay too low. Raise it and this should help.

2- Add some fans.

3- Increase your circulation! I see film on the top of your water and that is not good.

I love reef solution.

Originally posted by AbSoluTc

Couple things -

 

1- Your hood is waay too low.  Raise it and this should help.

 

2- Add some fans.

 

3- Increase your circulation!  I see film on the top of your water and that is not good.

The flow rate on my HOB was set to about half. I cranked it up to full.

Heres a couple of pics of my temporary clothespin solution to raise the lights.

Dont buy a iceprobe-your tanks to bigfor the probe,I have one on my 9 gal custom and it works but not to the effect that you would think,I run 2x32 smartlamps with 2 22cfm fans in my hood and my tank temp stays around 78 ,but the probe runs all day so I wouldn't buy the controller again,I was looking at the azoo or the aquamedic let me know which one you get

I am wondering if anyone can direct me to a website where I can buy an iceprobe. I am currently living in Malaysia. My 10 gal tank is always at around 28-30C. But my fish seem to be quite happy. Just that I can't put in any corals due to the temperature.

Thanks.

the iceprobe works perfectly and should be fine on a tank that size with those lights. I had it on my 7 and I had a 70watt metal halide, 36 watt powercompact and a 13 watt powercompact over the fuge (hottest light ever). The tank was cooled so much that I had to put the heater back in the tank to get the temp stable (bought my probe before the controller was available).

venus, not sure where you can get the iceprobe in malaysia (beautiful country by the way). here are a few sites that have the probe (not all in stock tho).

marinedepot.com (out of stock)

premiumaquatics.com (probe avail. not the prebuilt unit tho).

marine ecosystems

drs forster and smith

the probe is more common now than when I got mine last year so it shouldn't be too hard to locate on the web.

on my 20H w/ a 400w MH the aquamedic 150 thermoelectric wouldn't touch my heat...i had to go w/a 1/10hp Pacific Coast chiller to get my fans NOT to run.

i would suggest you raise the hood up like you have and add a fan or 2...i NEVER had a heat problem in my 10gal...just use some fans and rely on evap

Lunchbucket

I just hooked up my new via aqua cc25 chiller. They are selling it on e bay for 280 dollars. Its a 1/4 hp chiller with a digital readout and controller, basically set and forget. It will run off of anywhere between 100gph and 400gph. I hooked it up with a mag drive 250. After head space its flow is pumping about 150gph, which is managable in a 20. It lowered my temp by 2 degrees yesterday in about 20 min. It is now lowering it by another degree today. I do not want to lower the temp to quickly, but I'm guessing that this thing would be able to bring my tank down 10-15 degrees.It may be a little more expensive than some of the peltier effect ones, but it will cool a lot more effeciently and if you ever move to a larger tank, I'm guessing it would work well up to about a 90gal. I just though I would pass it along, I was also looking at iceprobe, teclima, etc etc, and I just thought that this was a little more bang for your buck. Heres the link if your curious....via aqua on ebay

good luck;)

Brianc_4 -

Hows the noise level on that type chiller? Sounds like it is doing a good job.

BTU HEAT REMOVAL RATING OF 1500 BTU/HR

so about the same as an Artic 1/10 and a little more than my Pacific coast 1/10 hp chiller

nice buy too.....wonder how it compares to the Pacific coast one i have

Lunchbucket

its no louder than a normal refrigerater. You can hear it click on, and then its just a like a computer fan sound.

Originally posted by Lunchbucket

BTU HEAT REMOVAL RATING OF 1500 BTU/HR

 

so about the same as an Artic 1/10 and a little more than my Pacific coast 1/10 hp chiller

 

nice buy too.....wonder how it compares to the Pacific coast one i have

 

Lunchbucket

i got my Pacific coast from www.premiumaquatics.com and you can find the arctic on a couple internet places....can't remember where but there are links in the RC thread about them

Lunchbucket

i think it is a 1/10hp thread about the arctic by mtndewman

Lunchbucket

pacific coast 1/10 chiller its a little cheaper here than premium aquatics. I'm not sure where to get the arctic chiller. But definitely shop around, prices vary alot from store to store. My via aqua was 280 on ebay brand new. The exact same chiller on marinedepot is 439.99.

Good luck;)

if that is the OLD STYLE ( it is in the picture that you linked too) i would NOT pay less for it. i would ONLY get the new style w/ built in temp probe

Lunchbucket

How can you tell from the picture if it's the one with the controller? And who sells the Via Aqua w/ the controller already built-in?