Teco TK 3000 Chiller With Heater

Heating as Well as Cooling

This is the H build of the TK 3000, and the difference is
a heater inside the same cabinet: the same refrigeration circuit and the same
cooling duty as the plain TK 3000, plus an 800 W heating
element that the thermostat brings in when the water falls below your
set point. That figure is TECO’s own, from the technical data table of the TKD
instruction manual covering the TK3000 and TK3000H, and the same document’s EC
declaration of conformity lists the TK3000H by name.

One thermostat drives both directions, so you set a temperature rather than
a mode, and the front panel tells you which way it is working:
green for cooling, red for heating, lit while it is running
and flashing while it is standing by, ready to.

What that buys you is one box holding a set point through the year instead
of a chiller for the hot months and a separate submersible heater for the cold
ones, each with its own thermostat and its own opinion. It matters most where
the room swings hard between seasons, and on a system where you would rather
not have a glass heater sitting in the display tank at all.

Compatibility

What it is for. TECO describe the TK 3000 as suitable for
conditioning the water of domestic and commercial aquariums — their
examples are fish shops, fish markets and restaurants — and state that it
is compatible with fresh or salt water and with livestock
including fish, plants and live rock. The heat exchanger is titanium, which is
why salt water is on that list rather than being a caveat. TECO also say
plainly that it should not be used for anything other than water
conditioning.

How much water it will actually hold. This is the number
people get wrong, because a chiller’s rating is not a tank size — it is a
tank size at a stated temperature. TECO publish two figures for the
TK 3000, both measured in a 30 °C / 86 °F room:

• Up to 3000 litres (790 US gal) held at
  25 °C / 77 °F, at a COP of 2.4.
• Up to 500 litres (130 US gal) held at
  8 °C / 47 °F, at a COP of 1.7.

A six-fold difference between the two, from the same machine. Work out the
temperature you need to hold before you work out the volume you can hold it
in, and if your target sits between those two points, read the capacity as
sitting between them too. A coldwater or temperate system asks far more of a
chiller than a reef held at 25 °C. Lights, pumps and a closed lid all
add heat that these figures do not account for, so leave headroom rather than
sizing to the number exactly.

Flow through the unit is a hard requirement, not a preference.
TECO specify a minimum of 3000 l/h and a maximum of
4000 l/h (780–1057 gal/h) through the chiller. That is
the actual flow reaching the machine, not the pump’s rating on its box —
TECO make that distinction themselves, and add that the pump flow rate should
be chosen with your distributor. Head height, pipe runs, elbows and a dirty
strainer all take a bite out of a pump’s headline figure, so a pump rated
3000 l/h open-ended is very likely to deliver less than that once it is
plumbed. Undershoot and the unit cannot move heat out fast enough; the
symptom TECO list first under “insufficient water cooling” is insufficient
water flow.

Plumbing. Water inlet and outlet are 25 mm
(1 inch), and two hosetail fittings with gaskets are in the box
— so 25 mm bore hose, and hose clamps, are what you buy to go with
it. Maximum working pressure is 1 bar (14.5 PSI),
which rules out putting it on the pressure side of anything that can build
more than that. The feed must come from the pump or filter group into the port
marked INLET and return to the aquarium from the port marked OUTLET; TECO note
that neither the pump nor the filter group is supplied.

Where it can stand. The unit must sit below the
water level — TECO state this as a caution, not a suggestion
— and must not be placed on top of the tank, or anywhere the condenser
will draw in salty air. In practice that means a cabinet, a sump room or the
floor beside the stand, on a flat surface, with the clearances listed under
Safety & Precautions kept clear. It is an air-cooled machine: everything it
takes out of the water it puts into the room.

Ambient temperature. Read this one carefully, because TECO
publish three different windows for it. Their instruction manual’s
installation section says 5 °C to 38 °C; the catalogue’s
TK 3000 table says 10 °C to 38 °C; the specification table on
their website says 16 °C to 38 °C. We are not going to
average three manufacturer figures into a fourth one that nobody published.
Design to the narrowest of them — 16 °C to
38 °C — and you are inside all three. The upper end is
the one that bites in an Indian summer: a chiller in a closed cabinet with no
air change sits in its own exhaust, and 38 °C in that cabinet is
reached long before 38 °C in the room.

Cooling and heating from one controller. This is the
TK 3000 H. The cooling data above is shared with the plain TK 3000; what this
build adds is an 800 W heating element inside the same cabinet, run by
the same thermostat, so one set point covers both directions. TECO do not
publish a heating capacity in litres the way they do for cooling, and we are
not going to derive one — 800 W is the input rating and that is what
they state.

What we cannot tell you from TECO’s own material: a noise
figure — they claim reduced noise levels across the range and publish no
dB number for any model — and whether the TECOnnect Wi-Fi module is
compatible with this unit. TECO list TECOnnect against the TK 500, TK 1000 and
TK 2000 and do not list it against the TK 3000, which is not the same as
ruling it out. If either matters to your install, ask us and we will put it to
the distributor rather than guess.

Specifications

• Model — TECO TK 3000 H, from the TKD tank chiller
  line.
• Dimensions — 395 × 600 × 565 mm (h)
  / 15.55 × 23.62 × 22.24 in (h).
• Weight — 40 kg / 88 lb.
• Water volume — up to 3000 litres
  (790 US gal) held at 25 °C, or up to 500 litres
  (130 US gal) held at 8 °C, both measured in a
  30 °C room.
• COP — 2.4 at 25 °C, 1.7 at
  8 °C.
• Water temperature range — 8 °C to
  30 °C (46 °F to 86 °F), held to a minimum
  differential of 0.5 °C, displayed to 0.1 °C in °C or
  °F.
• Flow rate through the unit — minimum
  3000 l/h, maximum 4000 l/h (780–1057 gal/h).
• Water inlet / outlet — 25 mm, 1 inch.
• Maximum water pressure — 1 bar,
  14.5 PSI.
• Heat exchanger — titanium.
• Compressor — rotary.
• Power supply — TECO build this model in three
  variants: 230 V – 50 Hz,
  230 V – 60 Hz and
  115 V – 60 Hz. The 230 V / 50 Hz build is
  the one that suits Indian mains.
• Power consumption, cooling — 750 W, from the TKD instruction manual.
• Power consumption, heating —
  800 W, from the TKD manual’s TK3000H column.
• Ambient temperature — 16 °C to
  38 °C is the narrowest of the three windows TECO publish; see
  Compatibility above.
• Refrigerant — R290 (propane). See Safety & Precautions.
• Manufacturer — TECO S.r.l., Fornace Zarattini,
  Ravenna, Italy. Built to EN 60335-1 and EN 60335-2-55 under the EU
  Low Voltage and EMC directives.

On the power figure. TECO print two. The TECO AQUA catalogue’s TK 3000 table gives 720 W at 230 V / 50 Hz, measured in a 30 °C room with the water at 25 °C; the TKD instruction manual gives a flat 750 W cooling for every supply variant. We quote the manual’s 750 W above, for two reasons: the model-specific manual is the document that governs, and when you are sizing a circuit, a stabiliser or an inverter, the higher of two figures four per cent apart is the one to design against.

The refrigerant is R290. TECO’s current catalogue and website both list R290a for this model, and R290 is the charge in the units we hold — confirmed on our side rather than inferred from the documentation. R290 is propane: a hydrocarbon refrigerant, flammable, and entirely normal in a modern chiller. It changes nothing about how the machine performs and everything about how it is serviced — keep the unit ventilated, keep ignition sources away from the sealed circuit, and leave any refrigeration work to a qualified technician. See Safety & Precautions. The TKD manual revision on file is the older R410A build; if the data plate on your unit reads R410A rather than R290, tell us, because that would mean an earlier machine reached you.

Safety & Precautions

The three cautions TECO put in capitals, and the reasons they are
in capitals:

• The unit must be installed below the water level. Above
  it, the circuit can drain or air-lock, and the machine ends up running against
  an empty exchanger.
• It must not run without water flow. If the pump is off,
  the chiller must be off. TECO state this to prevent damage, and it is the
  single easiest way to destroy the unit — a timer or a controller that
  can switch the pump but not the chiller is a trap.
• It must not stand on top of the tank, or anywhere the condenser
  can draw in salty air. Salt aerosol on a condenser corrodes it from
  the fins inward, and no amount of cabinet cleaning gets it back.

Clearances. TECO give minimum distances and they are not
symmetrical, so the unit has a right way round:

• Air outlet side — more than 500 mm
  (19.7 in).
• Filter side — more than 300 mm
  (11.8 in).
• Power cable side — more than 60 mm
  (2.3 in).

The room itself must have openings that let air exchange with the outside,
and enough of it to carry the machine’s heat away. A sealed cabinet does not
qualify, however large it is.

Water reaching the unit must be filtered. TECO’s caution,
and a sensible one: the exchanger is a narrow path and debris that gets into
it does not come back out. They do not specify what filtration, so take it as
“whatever keeps solids out of the loop” — the return from a filter or a
sump, not a raw feed off the tank floor.

Electrical. Check that your supply matches the technical
data plate on the rear of the unit before you plug it in; TECO build this
model for three different supplies. Start the pump first, then switch the
chiller on. There is a deliberate two-minute delay on the
compressor at first start, to protect it — the unit is not faulty and you
should not cycle the switch waiting for it. Do not cut, trap, damage or pull
the supply cord, and do not site multiple portable socket-outlets or portable
power supplies behind the appliance. A damaged cord must be replaced by the
manufacturer, the dealer or a qualified technician, not repaired.

Refrigerant. Do not damage the refrigerant circuit — TECO’s own warning, and it carries real weight on this unit, because the charge is R290 and R290 is propane. Keep the machine ventilated, keep ignition sources and open flame away from the sealed circuit, and leave anything that touches it to a refrigeration technician. Do not attempt to recover, top up or vent the gas yourself, and do not puncture the circuit when moving or mounting the unit.

Moving parts and maintenance. Never put fingers or objects
into the air outlet grille — the fan is behind it. Unplug the unit before
doing any maintenance on the aquarium. Repairs are for qualified people only:
TECO are explicit that unauthorised modification or repair, or the use of
non-original spare parts, voids the warranty and discharges them from
liability.

Routine maintenance is one job. Clean the air filter
at least once a month, and more often in a dusty room. Turn
the screw on the front metal grille a quarter turn anticlockwise, lift the
grille off, pull the filter out, and wash it in lukewarm water —
no hard brushes and no blunt tools, they damage the mesh. Refit and
close. A blocked filter is the cause TECO list against three separate
symptoms, including the AL1 alarm.

What the display is telling you. Green means cooling, red
means heating; steady light is running, flashing light is standing by and
ready to run. Three fault codes appear:

• E1 — outgoing air at room temperature (loss of gas
  in the compressor: call the dealer), obstructed ventilation grille (free it or
  move the unit), or a failed ventilation system (call the dealer).
• E2 — insufficient water flow (check the pump), a
  faulty heater, or a damaged water temperature probe.
• AL1 — a damaged overheat probe, a dirty air filter,
  or a room above the permitted maximum.

Also, plainly: this is not a product for children under
eight, nor for anyone with limited physical, sensory or mental abilities or
without the relevant experience, unless supervised or instructed by the person
responsible for their safety. Children must not play with it and must not
clean it unsupervised. When you move it, carry it upright by the
handles and set it down on a flat surface — that applies in the
box as well as out of it.

What’s in the Box

TECO publish the packing list for this range in their instruction manual,
and it is short:

• The TECO TK 3000 H chiller.
• Two hosetail fittings, complete with gaskets and rings
  — these are the 25 mm / 1 inch connections for the inlet and
  outlet. Each one screws clockwise into its port and can be rotated to the
  angle you need before you tighten it.
• The instruction manual.

What is not included, and this is the important half:

• No pump. TECO say so twice — the pump and filter
  group are not supplied as standard, and they direct you to your distributor to
  choose the flow rate. The unit needs 3000–4000 l/h delivered
  at the chiller, so this is a real purchase to plan for, not an
  afterthought.
• No hose and no hose clamps. You need 25 mm bore hose
  in a length that suits your run, and clamps at both ends.
• No controller, no Wi-Fi module and no external probe. The
  thermostat is built into the unit.
• No spare air filter. The fitted one is washable and TECO
  expect it to be washed, not replaced.

On unpacking, TECO ask that you do not turn the box or the
appliance upside down, that you open the carton by lifting the box upwards and
taking out the accessory bag first, then the polystyrene side protections, then
the plastic bag — and that you keep the packaging in case the unit ever
has to travel again. Then check the technical data plate against what you
ordered, which is the same plate that tells you the supply voltage and the
refrigerant.

This is a 40 kg machine and it ships on a pallet-grade carton. If it
arrives with the carton crushed or the unit visibly damaged, photograph it
before unpacking any further and message us — TECO’s own instruction is
not to install or attempt to repair a product damaged in transport, and that
photograph is what the claim runs on. Do not plug it in to “see if it
works”.

Warranty & Support

This product carries a 1-year manufacturer warranty from the date of purchase, covering material and manufacturing defects.

Warranty support is handled by us directly. Message our WhatsApp support with your order number and we will diagnose the fault first. Most cases are solved by replacing a single part, so you rarely need to send the whole unit. If the item does need to come back, it ships to our Delhi or Pune warehouse, whichever one served your order, and courier cost in both directions is borne by the customer. Your GST invoice is valid proof of purchase for the claim.

Returns & Replacement

Returns are accepted within 7 days of delivery, provided the item is unused and in its original packaging. Manufacturer-sealed items cannot be returned once the seal is broken, and sale-priced items are not refundable.

If your item arrives defective or damaged, message us on WhatsApp with your order number, or email us if you would rather, and we will replace it. Approved replacements are delivered within 3 to 5 business days. Transit damage is covered by insurance on every shipment. If tracking shows delivered but nothing reached you, tell us within 72 hours, which is the reporting window Indian couriers allow. Damage caused during installation or use is not covered; replacement spares for such cases are chargeable.

Full terms are on our Cancellation & Returns page.