not trying to hijack the thread or step on prof's toes, but here is just a few of the things people(including myself) try to dig back through the thread to find.
I DID NOT COME UP WITH ANY OF THE FOLLOWING, THIS IS ONLY REPLIES REPOSTED FROM PROF AND UNDERCURRENTDWC:
well again 60/40 r/g for bloom
vice versa for grow
Your gonna want 60/40 red/blue...the 2900k are yellow.... that really doesent help... actinics will stunt growth and prevent stretching... too much red and its all stretch..
newbs should stick with pr0fs bulbs/recommendations until they have a grow under their belt...
depending on your grow area i would suggest starting with an 8 bulb heres why ...
get an 8 bulb and populate only 4
when your plants start getting ready for bloom you can drop in another 4 and stagger your cost... i suggest owning a total of 10-12 bulbs that you can switch out for veg/bloom.
most fixtures have more than one switch if they dont theyre crap!... stay far away from the value fixtures... the ballasts are what your after ballasts are worth their weight in herb...
I cant stress enough the importance of the t5 with internal reflector....
12 bulbs you would probably want 3x4 bulb combinations or 4x3 bulb combinations...
something like this
for veg
fiji
actinic plus
454 or 75.25
F
A
4
F
A
4
F
A
4
or
F
A+
75
454
*repeat
Korallen Zucht Fiji Purple
UVL 454nm with internal reflector
UVL Red Suns/Red Life
ULV Super Actinic @ 420nm with internal reflector
UVL 75.25 with internal reflector
(end of reposted info)
a few of my own thoughts(yes me not pr0f so take it with a lot of salt), even though this is my first grow, i have had an outdoor veggie/herb/spice garden for about 5 years and seem to have a knack for this kind of stuff. Not trying to toot my own horn here, but I find if you read a lot about a topic and then use a little bit of your own intelligence and common sense and just go for it you can surprise yourself. In this scenario i'm not trying to sound like a dick but the order of the bulbs is not really going to make or break this kind of setup. Consider how many bulbs you have, remember the 60/40 Blue for veg, and 60/40 Red for bloom and divide try to space out evenly. Obviously if you might not have perfect spacing to fit the bulbs you need to get the 60/40 ratio you want, but i just did the best i could to alternate bulbs when i could.
Assassin, for 4 bulb, i'd maybe try the following (maybe even another 454,72/25,or actinic plus, but i think that might be a little too much blue for the 60/40 ratio)
fiji
actinic plus
454 or 75.25
fiji
I'd just go with what i have in bold unless prof or undercurrentdwc or someone who has a little more experience suggests something else. Thats the same order of bulbs i have in my 8 lamp, same order repeated twice basically. For the flower i have, (fiji, actinic plus, red, 75/25, fiji, red, 454, fiji). Working fine for me so far. As far as where to get bulbs and links, you now have names of bulbs above, just do some searching. not only for the bulb names, but for aquarium stores in your area. I've found it much easier to just go to an aquarium store thats only 40 minutes away and get the same bulbs without any shipping stress on bulbs, let alone cost. They even gave me 10% off my first order with them just because I told them I wanted to use a local shop rather than an internet distributor. A little bit of kissass and just being a friendly person can go a long way with a locally owned business. they still make money, you get a deal, everyone's happy.
sorry for getting sidetracked and i hope prof isn't upset for reposting some stuff i thought a lot of people are always looking for. There is a lot of science and interesting stuff in this thread that i won't even bother trying to repost or find the most important content out of those posts. There is just too much and it's all very important to what we are all looking for here. So while you can try and shortcut and find the key posts you need to keep going, you really should go back and read the thread post by post when you have time here and there so you can have some of the knowledge in your head so you can make some decisions based on what you read if you can't find exactly the same bulb or you find a new bulb that meets the criteria of what has been discussed here.
Thanks again prof for starting this thread and keeping it going smooth.