Okay, here's a simplified version of this topic:
( > means the thing on the left is greater or better than that on the right)
Which lighting is best for the plants?
Lots of sunlight > some sunlight with other lighting > fluorescents of any kind or HID like metal halide or high pressure sodium > halogens > incandescent (normal light bulbs)
The last two are only in there as a reality check. Nobody should use halogens or incandescents as a primary light source for plants, as they are very inefficient and will burn your plants.
Which lighting is best for plants in a terrarium?
Sunlight can heat up a terrarium very quickly, so a closed or almost-closed terrarium should never be placed where it will receive direct sunlight. A bright windowsill is still good, if there is never any direct sunlight coming through it. You will probably need some extra lighting for most CPs. Other than that the same guidelines above apply.
What kind of fluorescent bulb do i need?
There are two approaches to plant lighting using fluorescents. One is the low cost, mainstream route, and the other is the high tech, high cost route. In either case, if you can give the plants some natural light it will make them happier. It's impossible to beat the sun, because that's what the plants are designed for!
For the mainstreamers (anybody not prepared to spend $50-$500 on their lights), the proper way to approach the problem is to maximize the amount of light: "Quantity of light is more important than quality" Here, the amount of light a bulb puts out is more important than any other factor than its price. You'll need to buy a plug-in timer
with a ground (third) pin. Some examples of this approach to lighting are:
1) for
mid-sized to larger collections: grow shelves. Buy cheap shoplights at Home Depot or Lowes or wherever you can find them. Mine were from Home Depot and cost $8. It should say on the box that it has an electronic ballast (instead of magnetic or electromagnetic). These shoplights are four feet long, hold two bulbs, and come with chains and hooks to hang them from the ceiling or a shelf. Do that. Hang them about 10 to 20 inches above the growing area (or more if you have tall plants, but realistically tall plants don't work well with artificial lighting).
Most CPs should be as close to the lights as possible, within reason (closer than 3 inches is probably not a good idea).
MOST! Not all!
If you have a lot of plants, you can get some nice four foot long metal wire adjustable shelves for less than $80 and hang two shoplights under each shelf to create a lot of growing area very compactly. You might have heat problems with this many lights in one area, though.
Buy bulbs for your shoplights. If you bought the electronic ballast shoplights, the kind of bulbs you want are T8s (that means they are an inch in diameter). A lot of fluorescent bulbs are the thicker T12s, so make sure you get the right kind. One that works for me that i found at Home Depot is the Phillips TL741 bulb. It has green endcaps because it is one of their low-pollution, high efficiency bulbs. Mine cost less than $3 each. Any "cool white" bulb will probably work. "Warm white" are not as good, if you have a choice between the two.
Here is a photo of my grow shelf (and i've got three more shelves if i really want to get crazy with the grow lights! )
2) for
small collections, if you don't have a nice window, you can get one of the clamp-on utility lamps (it's all made of shiny metal and has a pretty good reflector) at Home Depot or Lowes.
Here's a photo courtesy of Larry:
I think they cost around $8. The reflector makes a big difference in how well the plants get lit. If you want you could use any lamp that can be positioned to point down at your plants, but a good reflector will help.
Buy a compact fluorescent bulb for the lamp. These bulbs are just like the long fluorescent lamps, except they are twisted up so they look like an incandescent bulb (the ordinary light bulb). They can fit in normal light bulb sockets (like the kind on the utility lamp you just bought), but they are much better at producing light without so much heat. You want to get the most powerful one you can (meaning the number of watts or the amount of lumens - look at the packages) that isn't too expensive. If you find some that say they are "cool white" (instead of the usual "warm white"), that's a much better option than warm whites with the same power. A quick look at the local supermarket revealed 23, 25, and 30 Watt bulbs, all for $8.50. They should be cheaper at a home improvement store.
Put the bulb in your lamp. Position the lamp so it shines down on your plants, within six inches or so of the plants. Once again, two or three inches is too close, while a foot is too far for most CPs. If you set the lamp on top of a terrarium, make sure that there is some open space around the edges of the reflector for heat to escape. Fluorescents last longer and are more efficient when they aren't overheated.
Finally, set the timer for 12 hours on, and plug in the lamp. Unless your plants are all tropical CPs, adjust the timer throughout the year every few weeks or month so that the amount of time the lights stays on varies from around 10 to around 16 hours to simulate the seasons. It would probably be best to do that so that the short time is the same as winter in your part of the world. That is just a suggested amount - you could run them much longer, for example.
For the high tech people who want to spend more: read this entire thread.
So that's it! It's not really that complicated. The most important thing to remember is that plants are really not as delicate as we sometimes think. It's best to take these guidelines and try them, and then change them to fit your needs and see how the plants respond. Experiment. What works for one person doesn't always work for another. Just make sure to adjust the plants slowly when moving them from artificial lights to sunlight, or they WILL get hurt or even killed.