Decorative Macro Algae and Filtration

[Treefer32]

The Crimson Macro Algae discussion got me thinking of natural ways to filter water. I like the idea of nature taking care of it's own problems. I use a turf scrubber with hair algae to control phosphates. I use multiple containers to house homes for denitrifying bacteria.
Then I got to thinking, that in the ocean, nature must have an algae that consumes equal amounts of phosphates to nitrates or maybe even feeds on nitrates instead of phosphates.

That got me thinking of decorative algaes. Maybe it's a pointless discussion or everyone would have decorative macro algaes instead of skimmers and water changes.

For the sake of arguement, are there any marine plants (preferably decorative) that feed directly on nitrates? I like to ask dumb questions for the sake of discussion. This might be one of those... I apologize in advance if it is.

 

[unchaotic]

A lot of the decorative macros seem to like different lighting and/or flow than are present in the typical reef tank. My buddy has a seahorse tank (low flow) with dragons breath macro doing the bulk of his nutrient control. I got some from him and threw it in my wife's low flow algae covered 15g and it out competed the hair algae after a couple months.

If possible, having a display refugium plumbed into your system is a good compromise.