Help with lights please

First off i'd just like to say hey to fellow lovers of the green

Second, i'd like to ask for some advice. I have 2 small cupboards that i can use that i think will have sufficient space, I plan to have 1 cupboard for the mother and 1 for (hopefully) my clones flowering.
I also plan to use hydroponics. Would i be best to buy a kit? or build it myself? I've seen the video and it doesn't look that hard.
Also, could anyone give me advice as to which power/kind of lights do i want to be using to grow say the mother and 4 clones? Will i have to buy the ballast separate?
Any help would be appreciated

for a really good setup you will want a ballast for your flowering because you want more wattage and you need a ballast for your high watt bulb....now you can get a variety of lights from HPS to MH but i recomend the 400 watt High pressure Sodium works great and you will need a ballast but for your other cupboard you can use either 3' or 4' fluorescents or (smaller) CFL's AND you wont need a balast and works great!! for the CFL's you might need a light splitter and get like 4 of them to produce more wattage

keep growing man, lots of love

I like the cfl grows for the budget... I started out that way with my present grow.. Im now under two 600w hps and flowering... I would build if I where you.. this lets you really customize the set up you want.. explore the journals here and see what you like. There are a lot of nice cabinet builds here you can pull ideas from.. Most people with a journal will have a link to it in there signature... Good luck..
Check out mine btw and see if there is anything you can take from it... welcome to roll it up!