12/12 is to initiate flower / bloom phase in a photoperiod plant. If you have autoflowers, you can stick to 18/6. Outside of a photoperiod, hours of light is not the point you shoudl be focusing on.. Daily Light Integral (DLI) is what you want to focus on. Whether 12 horus or 18hours, 35-40 DLI is going to max out your yield in ambient CO2 environments. It doesn't matter if you give it over 12 hours, 16 hours or 18 hours, the same yield will result, ceteris paribus. You can only contineu to use 18/6 if they are autoflower plants, but you should be estimating DLI provided from your light specs and referencing a DLI table. From there you can adjust based on what the plant tells you... Each garden has its own local variables that will impact the maximum DLI you can give. DLI is an apples to apples comparison. 35 dli for you is the same as 35 dli for me, but whether the plants can handle it relative to temps, rh, vpd etc is another layer to the onion.