What would be the right light for a roughly 3 x 2 square feet?

I am doing a bit of planning ahead for the coming year and I had a few questions about lighting. This community has certainly never steered me wrong so far!

I am working with a square shaped 36 inch wide by 34 inch tall space, in which I will place (ideally) three 11-inch square planters towards the back of the space (directly under the light) and two 13 inch square planters towards the front of the space, with about 1-2 inches space between the front row and the back. The distance from the top of the plants to the bottom of the light will be in the range of 21-24 inches.

All that said, I would like to get the maximum amount of results for my plants, but I don't want to light burn them or create more heat and noise than I can handle. I am currently using a 150 watt HPS light and supplementing during flower with a pair of 23 watt CFLs to boot. It has been good for someone first learning out, but I'm ready for the next step.
What would be the best lighting for a space like mine?

Add another 150w HPS and you should be good to grow! Check this one out for a reasonable price:

http://www.hydrofarm.com/product.php?itemid=12593

You can actually find them on Amazon for cheaper ($60 + free shipping).

You didn't mention your budget.

Get a two small T5 units and mount them vertically and keep your HPS on top. The smaller units are cheap and they run super cool.

Nice thing about them is you can run both veg (blue) and flower (red) tubes in them at the same time in different configs and most allow you to turn pairs or sets of the tubes on an off which helps with different kinds of grows and heat issues. The blue bulbs are still beneficial in flower.

Anyone remember the old photoron units?

Sheesh420 said:

You didn't mention your budget.

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Sorry! The absolute most I want to spend (INCLUDING Shipping) is 150 dollars. Sadly I'm on a very tight budget.

LEDs are also a option, if you got 400-600$ to spend, will pay it back in "no bulb replacements" and less power/ventilation used and the next to no heat is VERY nice to work with in small spaces, quality LEDs also have better spectrum then HPS (= more potent smoke)

here is my first fixture



you can get sumthing similar for around that amount of money, its about 22x14 inch`s and easily cover about 30x20"

it got 120x3W LEDs in it and run 280 actually watt`s


here is what it did for me on my first run

Kaleidoscope Mind said:

Sorry! The absolute most I want to spend (INCLUDING Shipping) is 150 dollars. Sadly I'm on a very tight budget.

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lol ok then just forget about the post I just posted, 150$ wont get you fare in LEDs

Kaleidoscope Mind said:

Sorry! The absolute most I want to spend (INCLUDING Shipping) is 150 dollars. Sadly I'm on a very tight budget.

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I posted that link for you for another HPS, one more of those and you should be rocking. Heck, for $150 I'd get that plus a couple of LEDs for supplemental light such as these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quad-band-2...133?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5ae619b165