Hey cable,
If you are looking for low cost lightning lowes sells a 85 watt
cfl that's equivalent to a 300 watt incandescent for around. 16 bucks, I bought two of them with two brooding
lights in all I spent 60 bucks, I was using 25 watt cfls ( my plant growth seemed to slow at the 6th week)
After I set up the new cfls, my plants growth exploded, but the do get some natural sun light throughout the day. I have transfered all my tomato and pepper plants outside into a wicking system and started new seedlings inside, I haven't seen how their doing under the larger cfls. ( @ work ) , but the wife says they are growing pretty good........from what ive read you are going to need a mh and
hps one. For veg one for flowering...but don't take my word on that, ( my toms flowered under the cfls I didn't get alot of flowers but my grow room has a window and the plants get some sun light. As far as I am concerned the 300 watt cfls work very well and are a low cost alternative to to mh hps and
led and tube
fluorescent fixtures. ( I'm not saying that they work better just cheaper over all ) as a beginner in hydroponics I have had very good success with my home built system, admittedly I was somewhat skeptical about hydroponics in the beginning.