I'm assuming you want to keep some sort of stony coral (LPS or SPS)1) Water changes do more than bring things out, they bring lots of small things in too. If you can find other ways of doing this then you don't need to do them.2) Water changes cover a lot of sins and things that were overlooked. On a long term average the tanks I change water in have less hard to resolve issues than the ones I don't change water in.3) I don't change water in my personal tanks, more due to size than anything else. My tank at home has around 600 gallons water volume, so a 50% water change is a roughly $300 affair. You can buy a lot of gizmos at that rate. It's also worth noting what while I "don't change water" in reality I end up taking out 5-20 gallons per month in skimmate, water leaving with frags, etc. That may not seem like much, but can equate to 1/3 of the tank volume on an annual basis. I also dose several pounds of 2 part per month (soda ash, CaCl), nitrate, iodine, manually adjust Mg, and should really start dosing K so I don't have to manually adjust so often. I made it several years on just the 2 part and fish food.4) If it were me I would get a nice refugium going, put on a dosing pump (BRS if you have an Apex, generic 3 head if you don't, DOS if you want the fancy toys) add in a decent skimmer (doesn't need to be German to be nice), and test alk on a daily basis for a while, then weekly after that. For the first year I would do 10% water changes on a 2-4 week basis just to cover for things you miss. At this point if all went well your sps frags will have turned in to baseball sized mini colonies. If not, consider what you might be missing. If things are going well trade your water changes for a few more test kits, and if not keep changing the water.