Well, it can, but not with a bunch of large dirty Cichlids, that's asking for trouble.
You can do it, it is possible, but it's much harder and you are placing barriers around your method here that are not required.
Do not paint yourself into a corner.
I would highly suggest taking another approach here.
Hard plumb the tank.
Add a simple large diameter drain bulkhead that drains outside to the lawn etc or the drain in the house etc. Add a mix of hot/cold water for the refill.
Each fill and drain pipe has a valve to turn off/on.
This will save you tons of labor and make re setting things much easier.
It's a hassle to do this, but the long term effect is awesome.
You may also use 1/4 or 3/8" hard poly tubing for drain and fill as you can hide this easier etc, snake through the walls etc.
You can hire a plumber if you really want to also.
The cost will be worth it.
You can spend the cost of that easily on a test kit set up and then if you paid yourself say 5 $ hr, how much time would be wasted?
Do you like getting wet to clean and prune the tank? Draining the 24" to 12" deep tank makes working on it much easier there!
What about plant and fish health?
Do you think general upkeep and maintenance via a weekly water change will provide better or worse environments for them?
As you increase the rate of growth and go hi tech, you also create less room for errors, you have to respond faster and cannot put things off nearly as much.
You will need to calibrate the test kits to make sure that their readings are correct as well.
Basically you will need to learn an entire new skill set, or you can do water changes. There are trade offs for both approaches.
Given that you like larger cichlids, the wiser choice would be large frequent water changes, just like Discus advice.
That being said, with moderate loading of fish, you can get away without water changes, but it can walk a razor's edge, and that method like water changes, is self imposed.
You have some choices, but the trade offs and your personal habits play a huge role also. Folks generally slack off a great deal with test kits over time.
Even the best Marine tanks and astute detailed folks there have issues with their batteries of Lamotte test kits.
Marine water changes cost more and many of them have massive tanks, so the trade offs often are worth while there.
Automated water changes using a float switch and a solenoid can be very effective, Alan has a massive 185 gallon packed with huge fish, he does 2x a week 30% weekly water changes on timers.
The tank drains a fills 2x a week for 2-3 hours using 1/4" and 3/8" lines.
He never does a water change manually.
I'd prefer to outwit test kits/labor/guess work and labor of doing manual water changes, that's why we have brains
I would rather use the effort to avoid more future work, both test kits and water changes.
So what I suggest avoids both.
This gives you the best and simplest method for the long term. You have had this tank for over 10 years, so set it up to avoid work, or at least the type of work that you do not like. I like gardening personally, but hate test kits and water changes as much as the next guy, maybe more
But I do methods and make systems to get around all that mess.
Some folks will say they cannot do an automated system for what ever reason.
But if they can afford all this, can do all the test kits etc, they can also figure out a way to automate and remove the labor in doing water changes either entirely or at least a large amount if they put their heads into it.
Regards,
Tom Barr