Preacherboys,

Big question here! What you are concerned with is a couple things when growing indoors:

•Lumens: The sun gives off 10,000 lumens per square foot. Ideally plants absorb around 5,000 lumens per square foot. What you need to ask at what height is what lumens and throw. So a T5 is a light that has to be a lot closer than let’s say a High Pressure Sodium (HPS). Depending on the lamps used for the T5 you may be hard pressed to cover the area at different hieghts.
•Spectrum: Most T5 lights give of the full white spectrum with a tendency to be blue. The question is will that be acceptable for what you are growing or do you want to have a red heavy spectrum T5. (Blue is for growing and Red is for flowering.)
•Reflector: Typically you want a grow light with a good reflector; however, a wide angle reflector (>90 degrees) can be enhanced with a good grow tent. Are you using a grow tent?

I you want me to go into detail about heights and recommended wattage let me know and I can. I would say talk to the local grow stores and they should be able to walk you through choosing lights.

Now with that being said, and always I say shop for opinions don’t let mine be the end all be all, but the range of plants in the area is a major concern. Some of those plants are real space hogs and I would consider either scaling the space of the growing area or scaling back the types of plants. If this is your first time growing indoors I would stay away from vine plants and tomatoes. Tomatoes grow like trees under grow lights, look at MPH Gardeners tomatoes if you have never seen hydro tomatoes.

I would suggest going with lettuce, and herbs. They are hearty, easy to grow, and forgiving on mess ups.

Edit: Hope this helps! If you want more details let me know. This is a rather broad post to get you primed for the other, "heavier" conversations.

Jeremiah,
I appreciate your help and don't worry about over loading me I am on ground floor and have to start somewhere. This will be my first attempt, I do not have any equip at this time. Am going through the learning curve and as many am on a fixed budget. I have my heart set on doing a nice presentable herb garden for starters as you mentioned to learn the ins and outs. Afterward will move on to the other veggies, I mentioned them as they are end goal but prob should have made it clear at to intentions to begin small.
Have spoken with several local grow stores and have found one that is a grower. He has been very helpful and patient to explain things but much is beyond my knowledge in lighting. Lighting and knowledge of lights is a big set back for me at this stage. So trying to farm information to learn all I can.
At present from all I have learned I am thinking to go t5's with a 4 tube fixture. I am assuming that this will probably do for herbs
This store owner has some pepper clones and some tomatoes he is growing at this location. It has allowed some very nice show and tell. I have seen what you mean on the tomatoes being like trees, his are prob 6-7 foot and he is branching them. All I can say is WOW! LOL

Preacherboys,

Good luck and I hope you give the guy a great review on
Yelp (or something along those lines)!

MPH Gardener is a great
place to go on YouTube to get information on hydro. His YouTube series is great and covers
a wide range of topics.

I was really impressed with MPH Gardener, simply awesome!

Want to thank you for your help Jeremiah. I now have a the grow area functioning. Am sure there will be more questions on lighting later but now just going to try to work out fert and other first step questions so new thread I guess. Ty again!

Jeremiah Landi: (Blue is for growing and Red is for flowering.)

Can you cite, at least, one scientific study that shows that or are you repeating a rumor that might fall under the category, "If you hear a lie often enough, you believe it."?

Many plants, e.g., sunflower, bloom after reaching a certain size and then die. If what you said was true, someone could grow the World's tallest sunflower under only blue light. Since I have haven't heard of anyone doing anything like that, I don't believe what you said is true.

aruzinsky,

I have grown strawberries under red heavy T5’s without any problems before and had them go from growing to bloom, so I see what you are saying.

It is definitely something that I have heard (aka been told a lot) and remember reading about. Let me look into it and I will start a thread later in the week. I also wanted to ask some questions relating around the discussions we had on green the other day and this might provide the right forum!