bro the expensive equipments are expensive for a reason, its mainly for sps keepers who wants perfect water quality, softies like mushies are infact happier with dirtier water, so a comparison cannot be compared that way, just compare return pumps, a hailea pump is cheap and pushes alot of water compare to a exact similar ocean runner pushing just slightly more water but y is the ocean runner so much more expensive and people are willing to pay for it. it generates lesser heat in turn reduces chiller cut in and cut out time, and it uses lesser electricity so it pays for itself compared to the other pump.
CR is for controlled supply of Ca and Mg,
FR is for P04 removal media and carbon
and expensive skimmer usualy is because they are using good low electricity consumption pumps and the water volume they are rated for, but u can always use the cheap good old powerful beckett skimmer
all of which are needed for a gd tank
of course u can do without all this but that means u would have to change ur water by maybe 20% once a week or more to keep perfect parameters
i got almost full equipments running even thou i am keeping only lps/softies/tangs and i still test water almost everyday with 100l of prepared salt mix ready for any unforseen circumstances
and ur right there were lots of dishonest LFS owners just want to rip off un-inform reefers, but most of them have already closed down, most of those who still stands today are the better 1 in terms of service provided. but its also up to ourselves to be an inform customer by spending abit more time researching what we need over the net, btw my tank is not small thats y light should really not be the issue of y my green hairy mushies turn brown, i am running 1x250w mh in the centre and 2x 24w t5 (1 blue 1 white per fixture) over the sides of the tank , weird thing is every other mushies and yumas i have is flourishing except for this rock