I considered doing the triton method some time ago but went against it in the end. The only reason why is because IMO there are better methods or at least, less artificial ones, out there.
Living in an apartment and having a relatively big tank in it I thought it would be a good idea to minimize water changes hence why I started looking at other filtration/water treatment methods.
The idea of not changing the water in an aquarium, as crazy as it might sound, is not a new idea. People have been doing this for many years with great success. However it seems a relatively unknown thing here in Ireland (as most innovative stuff).
There are countless examples out there of people not using skimmers, UV, not doing water changes for years and having great success, however, it is something only advanced aquarist should attempt to do, or at least people with a basic understanding of water chemistry and biological cycle/process in a marine aquarium
It is not hard to find people out there who has not made a water change in several years, for instance look at this video below
The reason why I discarded the triton method is because I dont like having to depend on adding additives to the tank to maintain safe water parameters levels. I find it a bit unnatural although I dont doubt it works I just dont like having to depend on stuff to maintain that perfect balance.
Instead I went for what I believe is a much natural solution, an algae scrubber, the tank in the video above uses an algae scrubber, no skimmer, just carbon.
How I came up with this idea or thought was a couple of years ago when I stopped looking after my previous tank because I had other personal issues that required my attention. During this period an shinny algae film started growing on the back wall of my aquarium, back then I couldn't be bothered cleaning it so I let it grow, all I did with the tank is feed the fish every now and then and that's it, I went without a water change for months, maybe I did 2-3 water changes in 1 year. To my surprise nothing in the aquarium died, in fact, everything/one looked very happy. So after I went back to looking after my aquarium I went ahead and cleaned the back film of algae, within a week I had a massive algae break, hair algae everywhere, diatoms etc.
Back then I didnt know what could have caused that, so I kept doing water changes and added NoPox. Didnt make much of a difference. So after some thinking I decided to let that algae film grow again, within 2 weeks all the algae was gone. This is when I started looking into algae scrubbers as they follow the same principal, uses algae to filter the excess of nutrients in the water (nitrates, phosphates etc).
However I can't recommend an algae scrubber as I have yet to try it myself. I am getting one built at the minute and it should be ready by the end of April beginning of May.
My aim is not to not do water changes but to minimize it, it will be a slow learning curve but if I can also remove the skimmer to free up some space in the sump then great!
One of the best things about algae scrubbers is that you dont have to worry about overfeeding and that it only requires maintenance once a week, but this is also its con, you need to clean it once a week otherwise you will mess everything up. Cleaning it is a simple process that takes no more than 2 minutes (just scrapping one of the sides of the scrubber's mesh). Anyway I am not here to talk about the scrubber just wanted to give you my input regarding the no water changes idea.
