Sorry Laura. A filter is only going to remove particulates and give the bacteria responsible for processing ammonia a place to live and grow. No filter will ever replace water changes when it comes to controlling nitrates in your tank. That is the function of water changes. After reading through your other thread, it strikes me that you may be a bit reluctant to do truly large water changes. Let me put in my own 2 cents on the subject. When I suspect that I may have a water quality problem, I do not mess about with 10 or 20% water changes. Instead I do a water change that has my fish struggling for a bit of water to swim in until I do the refill of the tank. I often will call these a 90% water change but I am sure it is far more than that. As long as you can match the water temperature of the original tank water fairly closely and you make the effort to dechlorinate the new water, the fish will always look far better after a change like that than they did before you started.
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