When you buy Brightwell you are paying 80% for the name, 20% for the product. You let Brightwell do your calculating for you.
When you add a no name (reef Crest) 2 part solution you are basically adding CaCl and NaHCO3 (Sodium bicarbonate) to your tank. Your hard corals, snails, coraline algae etc are only using CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) at that exact ratio. This leaves pure NaCl behind.
We all know the salt we use is more than just NaCl. Eventually the levels of Nacl can get out of wack. Hence we do water changes to re-stabilize it.
The extra chemicals that most of the higher end 2 part solutions add to your tank are everything in a salt mix except the NaCl. This way the only thing that changes in your tank is your specific gravity gets higher. So you need to monitor your specific gravity every month or so and adjust accordingly.
If you add a NaCl free salt mix (Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt) to your tank at the correct proportions than you can balance your noname 2 part solution thus keeping your ionic balance in check. How ever to do so you need to be good with math. The reef calculators that are available on the web will help.
I am not a big fan of haphazardly adding things like strontium, iodine and trace elements without understanding exactly what you are doing. Good way to screw up your tank.
For most of us water changes are our way of getting things back in check. If you are not doing regular water changes and you do not fully understand reef chemistry you will eventually fail.
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