you shouldn't really need a very high tesallation value(I use 1000) for collision objects in fluids. One of the problems with collision is that the emitter is a volume emitter and not omni, omni technically doesn't have a problem with collisions because the fluids flow freely, but a volume emitter for some reason does because there isn't a wide enough space for the fluid to flow freely(even if you resize the volume emitter, there's still a problem) and it won't matter how high you set the tessalation.

As for your penetration problem Vel, if you're using volume render its just a matter of setting your opacity graph with transparency, but if you're using surface render then modifying the surface tolerance(doesn't really do much of anything) and threshold would help reduce that, though its touchy and hard to work with, so its a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. The fluid resolution may help some, but you again get expensive with higher resolutions and really the cost vs effect isn't worth it.