Hey guys...
Well, for a start, my name is Chris... I'm new here. And I have nitrate problems.

I currently have my fish in a 180g tank. My nitrates aren't pegged over as bad as it can be. But it's a battle keeping them low.. But I'm fighting it with constant water changes.
Freshwater.
I'm not over feeding. If anything underfeeding. All food get's eaten or removed.
2 medium sized dovii. ~9 inches.

I heard in the far corner of the internet - about algae scrubbers.

So for the past few days, I have been all over the internet, looking at DIYs, reading about the pros and cons of algae scrubbers, etc.
I currently have a sump with different types of media. Tumbling k1 moving bed media. Bioballs. Polyester? filter pads (for particles/mechanical filtration). And a big bunch of horn wort under a LED light in the last chamber of the sump.

I think I am currently battling Old Tank Syndrome.
I'm still looking into a turf/algae scrubber.
But I found in a few, or several pages here, that people say an algae/turf scrubber can handle all those "extra minerals" that your tank builds up over the years.

Other people say they won't handle the extra minerals.

But there's a few pages here that I read, where someone had gone like 3-5 years without a water change. Just top offs. I can't find the page now, but he had been doing maintaining perfect water qualities.

But others still insist the build up of bad minerals will cause your water qualities to go out of control faster than any algae can maintain.
Then if you were to ever do a large water change, you'd cause a sudden burst in ammonia levels (if the water change were to great)

Does anyone have any advice, or a link to a page without (don't take this the wrong way) a biased opinion?
- Is an algae scrubber capable of dodging old tank syndrome (of course without overfeeding and dirty filters).
- And if so, why do other people swear it's not possible?
- And why do some say Algae Scrubbers can poison your tank? Is that if it goes neglected or algae starts to rot on it?

I'm ready to listen.

Thanks,
Chris