We're all pretty lazy...lets face it...if we could get away with it we would never do another water change..EVER!!!  The reefkeeping tech world is coming along pretty nicely. In this thread i would like to discuss a few methods of controlling,lowering, and even elimanting nitrates! 

First lets start with the ol' water change method.

    Dilution is this answer to pollution,right? Easier said than done. Most of us keep our tanks due to the pure relaxation we achieve by sitting by our tank and watching our "small piece of the reef" grow and thrive. Water changes. Ugh. What a hassle sometimes. We all live busy lives and taking time out to prep water,drain water, refill,etc, can become a few hours work...WORK. I thought we kept our tanks for relaxation??!?!? No Pain , NO GAIN. 

NEXT: Letting nature do its thing!

       Macro algaes. Plant matter feeds off of nitrates and other things in our systems. Thats great right!?!?!? Sometimes. With the addition of mangroves and macroalgaes there also comes some slight problems to deal with. I have personally used mangroves to help control nitrates and the only problem i found was dealing with the shedding of pedals and things that will fall off,get sucked up into the return pump,and eventually be thrown into the display where it breaks back down and leaching the nitrates back into the tank...there are of course the macro algaes but i cant speak of these since i havent tried them..YET! 

Coming soon: Pellets and denitrators.......