What's your photoperiod?

[JoeESSA]

Not necessarily an advanced topic, but then again perhaps it is...

My question is what photoperiod do you use with metal halides and with any actinic supplementation? What do you believe the advantages are? I am currently running 12hrs with metal halides and 14 hrs with actinics. The only reason being that my LFS said to run my metal halides for 12hrs a day. Now I questioning that, especially after seeing one of my metal halide bulbs fade and yellow after only 6 months...

[TNTREEF]

I've seen people run a 8-10hr halide and 10-12hr actinic and there tanks were awesome. Bulbs will last longer too.

[Travis L. Stevens]

I run 12 Hours for Actinics and 8 Hours for Metal Halide.

11am: Actinics On
1pm: Metal Halide On
9pm: MH Off
11pm: Actinics Off
12am: Red Light from Flashlight on because I'm busy peering in my tank ;)

[JoeESSA]

Thanks. I'm considering changing my 250W XM 10k's for Reeflux 10k's or 20k bulbs to get bluer appearance. This will cut the total light output in half. Do you think it's a good idea to have longer photoperiod if using bulbs with lower PAR?