Ratios

[MasterBlaster]

Is it written in stone that if you have 'x' amount of actinic lighting, you must also have the same amount of white lighting? Are there different ratios, and why? Other sites can't seem to give me an answer on this - I KNOW Ninong can! Thanks!

[Ninong]

Is it written in stone that if you have 'x' amount of actinic lighting, you must also have the same amount of white lighting? Are there different ratios, and why? Other sites can't seem to give me an answer on this - I KNOW Ninong can! Thanks!

Sure! That's an easy one. Go with whatever ratio you prefer.

If you were to choose all VHO lighting, for example, you might want to go with half Super Actinic and half Actinic White. So if you had a total of 4 tubes, you would want 2 of each. Other folks might want to go with 2 Super Actinic, 1 Actinic White and 1 Aqua-Sun.

If you had metal halides and just wanted the VHO (or power compacts) for actinic supplementation, you would probably choose all Super Actinic but you could also choose 3 Super Actinic and 1 Actinic White. That way you would bring on 2 of the Super Actinics first, then 1/2 hour later you bring on the other Super Actinic & the Actinic White, then 1/2 hour or an hour later you bring on the metal halides.

There are no hard and fast rules on this. If you were trying to grow SPS under just VHO lighting, you would be better off using 2 Aqua-Suns, 1 Actinic White and 1 Super Actinic, but you might not like the color as much as the 50/50 Super Actinic/Actinic White combo.