New to INDOOR growing and need help..

I am moving out of my moms house and into an apartment. So outdoor growing is no longer needed and i know with indoor growing you can yield more and grow year round. I already know how to fertilize and that the light pattern needs to change to start flowering but what I don't know is what kind of lights I need. I am only looking to grow two to four plants in five gallon buckets. Doing this outdoors I usually end up with five to six foot plants of some good stuff. Can anyone tell me of a lighting rig that will help me get that kind of growth?

Depends on your budget. You can use CFL bulbs or you can spend a few bucks and run HID lights (Metal Halide for veg and High Pressure Sodium for flower)

It's fairly hard to replicate the sun so you won't get the same growth indoors. Are you growing in a tent or just in the house? Are you worried about smell? How much money do you have to spend on this setup? If you have $5-600 to spend. I strongly advise reading my Srawberry Diesel grow and SCOTTYBALLS G13 Pineapple Express grow. To me it is by far the best setup you will have.

you will not need as big of buckets depending on your growing area size. it depends on around how much you want to yeild/ how big the plants will be. with smaller pots you just need to water more often

Cfls work great for veg. I use 4 Ft. fluorescents for my veg. For flowering I am using a 400 hpsSo far I am quite pleased. DOOGEY420

CFL's do work great for veg. If I had the money I would have a separate hood for a 200w cfl but I don't so I use my 400w Metal Halide.

Actually, outdoor yields more. Indoor just has better quality nugs, but the yield will be alot less.
Id suggest buying a small grow tent, a dimmable 1000 watt MH/HPS ballast and bulb.
The CFL lights dont have the power to grow tall plants only small plants, and the light has to be pretty close to the plants tops. Thats why I sould suggest an HID light.
You also want to get an air cooled reflector, and possibly a small window air conditioner.
Veg the plants at 250 watts, then turn up the power for flowering.
All in all, id say your gonna have to spend about 700 bones to get a proper set up.
....or you could just stick to growing outside

Has anyone ever Hurd of or used the dual spectrum Lotus cfl? I was thinking of getting some for my lowryder #2 grow they seem to be strong at 15000 lumens a bulb if anyone has any info on the it would be greatly appreciated

You want to light up your plants to grow killer weed most efficiently (that is with min. power consumption, min heat generation, and max use of grow space)?

Use 48 inch double vho t5's and ZooMed 10.0 uvb t8 "lizard lights".

Trust me: I have tried almost everything! I have $1000 worth of 600w and 400w HID's sitting idle - I only really need them as heat sources during the cold months.

For the lizard lights Get a $35 48" t8 double light with POLISHED ALUMINUM reflector at Home Depot. Get two 48" vho t5s from any high bay contractor lignt source (about $40 each last time I checked). Put the uvb fixture in the middle and run the t5's parallel on each side. Hang the t5's slightly lower that the uvbs. Inclduing bulbs, this all costs about $225

Now you will have a full 4 square feet (less than 300 watts too) of (pefectly uniform) 6000+ lux with uvb supplementation. You won't believe how great this works!!!

After some experimantation, you will discover what strains respond best to this lighting. Fertilyzer choice makes a big difference too (I'll be dammed if after all the fancy shit I have tried for nutes, rabbit manure supplemented by kelp works fantastic)

while growing outdoors i usually yield 4 5 to 8 foot tall plants in 5 gallon bucket with a half to a full pound on each and i am turning my walk-in closet into a grow room it. 6x10x9