Here are some suggestions based on my own experience. Since you're just starting, you may want to start small so that you can learn at a nice pace. You could get a shelf unit like this from most hardware stores. This is nice, because you can hang any type of light that you want to use. For me, personally, nothing beats a metal halide lamp. Other types of light will work, but metal halide has always given me more bang for the buck. With a shelf like this, you don't need a 400 watt or 1000 watt metal halide. A 250 Watt or even a 150 watt will grow your plants great and not run up your electric bill. You will need a ballast to run the metal halide bulb. Both Lumatek and Galaxy offer ballasts that go as low as 250 watt. If they're "dimmable" then you can go down to 150 watt. So, you get a metal halide lamp (the bulb), also a ballast. Now all you need is a reflector like the one in the picture. I got an Econo-wing reflector. They fit perfect in these shelves. All of this stuff, you can find on Amazon, sunlightsupply.com, hydroponic stores, etc. I'd start with 1 of each and grow on one half of the shelf. Once you have things down pretty well, you can expand to the other half of the shelf like I did. I hope this helps.