T-5, 8, and 12. T-12's are the old fat tube fluros, don't put out much light, good for light for clones. T-8's are a bit more potent as far as lumens as zen said. T-5's are considered high output fluros, generally they run 5k lumens per tube. Zen to answer your question, if you are short on dollars, I would go with the free light for now. I think that should be enough light for a couple of weeks of vegging, just keep the tops as close as you can to the light without burning them. Unlike the popular belief that fluros don't throw off heat, my t-5 throws off plenty of heat. It's not a hid light but it's much warmer than cfl's, it does have an electronic ballast.
Jigfresh, I am amazed your girls don't wither or get crispy from that low humidity level. I like to try to keep my humidity around fifty percent when flowering...until they start to get thick and the last couple of weeks lower that down to forty five or just below forty five percent. I was under the impression that lower temps brought out more thc??? Maybe it's true for either temp extreme, high or low. Maybe it's just the plants response to extreme conditions. I know a plant throws out more thc if the humidity is low to protect itself from drying out, but too low and I have had problems with sativa leaves drying and dying.
Well another week has passed, the week ends, the week begins...and this week is going to begin with four new additions under my hps. I'll post up some new pics tonight, my weekly update. Today ends week five of 12/12 for my dog puff, the white widows, the trainwrecks and my grape ape. So basically I'm at the end of week four of flowering for that bunch. My two mothers, headband x cali-o and the og18 are a couple of days shy of two weeks flowering. I still have ten cuttings from the mothers vegging, I'll let them go another few days before moving them under the hps. That will give me a total of twenty three plants under my two lights. My new mothers, casey jones and headband are seventeen days old. I plan on starting to take cuttings from them around the fourth of december.