Reddit reviews Roleadro LED Plant Grow Lights 180W UFO LED Indoor Patio Plants Grow Lamp with Red Blue Spectrum Hydroponics,Plant Kit for Germination,Vegetative&Flowering

This is an awesome website that will answer most of your questions.

Soil

Pots

Nutrients

I bought this light

I'm getting these LED strips and I plan to keep the LED strips towards the bottom of the plant.

I use plastic Rubbermaid storage containers and 2" net pots. I had room to drill 8 holes with enough spacing for plants to grow. It takes a minute for the plants to establish roots but once they do, its non stop productivity.

I start out from seeds using rockwool cubes. Soak the cubes in water, add a seed to each one. Place them in something like this with a heat pad so they germinate faster. http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-CK64050-Germination-Station-Heat/dp/B000HHO1RO/

I let the plants germinate and grow for about 2 weeks, manually watering the rockwool cubes, with the cover on them you don't have to worry about them drying out very fast. Then when they look good, i put them in the 2" net pots, add some clay hydroponic pellets as well.

Now in the Rubbermaid storage box, make sure its not clear, if light gets in, it will create algae. I just use regular tap water to fill it up. Then use a cheap air stone, connected to a little air pump. This will create air bubbles in the water, the roots need to breath, more bubbles the better.

Then I will add the nutrients, I paid 15 dollars for two bottles I use. Just cheap, vegetative solution. Its not very powerful because lettuce and herbs don't need to flower. Now for this part I have two devices I use. A pH pen, and a PPM pen. pH pen will tell you how acidic your water is, the PPM pen will tell you how powerful your Rubbermaid water reservoir is. I use this handy little chart to tell me what the pH as well as the PPMs should be for growing what. http://www.homehydrosystems.com/ph_tds_ppm/ph_vegetables_page.html

Those two pens costs about 15 bucks each on amazon, you don't HAVE to have them, but it makes things a lot easier. If the pH is too high or too low, they have bottles of pH Up and pH Down, a few drops will get it to where it needs to be.

So now that the water has the nutrients going, and air stone making bubbles, I put the lid of the Rubbermaid back on with the 8 holes I had previously drilled. Then add the 2" net pots with the plants growing. The roots will break through the rockwool and end up floating in the water, the more roots, the faster your plant will grow.

You can do this outside, but during the winter where I live inside is the only option. There are a ton of options, but I choose LED. Its the most expensive option, but they use next to nothing on your power bill, they also don't create much heat at all. The life span of LEDs are also incredible, something like running 24/7 for ten years.

Here is a cheap light that works good. Just hang the light up close to the plants, add a timer for 18 hours a day.
http://www.amazon.com/Galaxyhydro-Light-60x3W-Spectrum-9-Band/dp/B00NL9UZA2/

Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/hydro/

tldr - I trim off an entire head of "Gourmet Blend lettuce" each week, will grow back by in about 7 days, if you have 8 plants going it can be a lot of free, low maintenance food

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00NL9UZA2/


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00FGFW0XO/


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MZ3JOM1/

I use 138w for Veg, 180w for Veg and Flower, and 270w for Flower.

https://www.amazon.com/Roleadro-Hydroponic-Indoor-Patio-Plants/dp/B00NL9UZA2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481066182&sr=8-2&keywords=180W+LED+UFO