I am in the process of the design and setup of a 200 gallon reef tank. I need to choose a controller and am looking at GHL and Neptune. From what I've read, I'm leaning towards the GHL. I'm a professional programmer, and one of the reasons I'm leaning towards GHL is I've heard the programming would be more to my liking. I've also seen mention of an API, I may want to write my own code to do more advanced monitoring and control. Is there such an API? What can you do with it? I imagine this is already discussed on this forum, but the search tool won't let me search on the term "API".

Secondly, can you tell me any specific reasons why I'd prefer GHL over Apex? The vendor I'm working with is pushing me towards Apex, because that's what they know. It would be good if I could justify why I should get GHL.