Trying to figure out my next reef purcahse...need input!

Ok I have been saving up to make my next big purchase for my tank as I am slowly trying to get all the equipment to have a really nice reef system and would love to get alot of sps eventually. As many of you know reef keeping can get a bit pricey and I would love to buy everything all at once, but I can only afford one option. (And it took me a bit of time to get it saved up for this so I am wondering which of these options is the best of the 3 to start off with cause it will probably be awhile before my next big purchase.) I have a 180 gal reef but total water volume of over 350 gal with sumps and refugiums.

I am looking at either purchasing either:

* an apex controller and calcium reactor

* 2 vortech mp40s with battery backup

or

* LED lighting system. (I currently have a nova extreme t5 light fixture ~465 watts which is nice but would like to go LED at some point)

 

klaberjd

can you remind me what you already have in your aquarium?

as that way I could select based on your set up
rather than just say Vortechs as that is what I want next

 

To be honest not much left. I had some of the bad Kent Carbon and it wiped out almost all of my corals. So I was lucky though that after I sent Kent my carbon (it was dated a month before the recall) they tested it and found out that I had a bad batch as well and as a result are in the process of working out a settlement with me. My fish are all still fine though and now I am pretty much starting out fresh. I plan on using the settlement money to help restock my tank with corals and want to use the money I have saved up on one of the things I listed above. Below is a link to a thread I started out several years ago here on 3reef. Probably easier than typing it all back out. The only difference is I have added another stock 100 gal tank so the system is around 400-450 gal total.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-off-your-fish-tanks/350-gal-reef-build-hits-yer-two-90598.html

 

This all looks good - get it all ;D

It's a very tough call between the Apex and the LEDs. The Apex brings amazing utiity, the LEDs the ability to grow more light intensive corals.

If you can't get both then I'd have to say the LEDs since you can sort of mimic a controller with other stuff while the LEDs bring additional capability. Not to mention, switching to LEDs after you have established corals would mean another acclimation period for the livestock.

I have both and if someone came to me and said "lose one" then I'd have to keep the lighting.

HOWEVER...

I'd maybe rearrange things. Of the things you list, the tops in my mind are the LEDs and Apex. Get the Apex and LEDs and drop the Calcium Reactor and Vortechs. Instead of a Calcium Reactor, get a Kalk reactor (or make your own). A little cheaper and far easier to maintain.

 

Yeah unfortunately I probably can only get one of the three options now. I personally am thinking of either LEDs or mp40s. Problem I see with LEDs is finding a fixture that's 6 foot. You have any brand that you recommend?