How the heck do I assemble these strip lights?!

Ok, so I have no knowledge of any electrical stuff. Consequently this post will sound very noob. What I want is a long light blub around 20 watts that I can place above a row of fish tanks. This is what I have: I purchased several T12 24 inch strip light fixtures that take a 20 watt florescent bulb.

The light "fixture" is just a bunch of long metal pieces and wires. Seriously WTH? There is no cord with a plug to plug the thing in even IF i figure it out. I'm in serious doubt of my hardware-store-buy-the-right-stuff-skillz.

Here's a bunch of pictures of the light fixture, the boxes the stuff came in, and the "easy 4 step instructions!":silly:

This picture shows the instructions:

Here is a picture of the light fixture, which I assembled per instructions (by assembly all I did was snap a couple of white metal pieces in to place)

Far left hand side:

Note the white wire goes nowhere

In the middle 2 black wires come out of a white box.

Note the left black wire goes nowhere. The right wire attaches to the far right side


The far right-hand side


You can see how the yellow wires from both sides of the fixture are attached to some free floating canister thing. Here is a picture of that canister thing:




How do I do this? Is this the wrong light fixture? How does energy get to light? Where is the on switch? Do I need additional tools/pieces? Am I too noob?! Thanks for the help...and baring with my total lack of skill regarding this crap!

Ok, so I went over to Yahoo Answers and was told these lights need a ballast and an on/off swith to function. So I'm going to cram them back in their stupid boxes, return them to the hardware, and get the right kind of light fixtures!

Lol thanks for the help! I can only get rides to a store between 6 pm and 10 pm, so I still have the fixtures.

Could I cut up any old power cord, or does it need to have a ground? Included in the package of the light fixtures is a green screw labeled as a "grounding screw". It seems to be the consensus on the internet that green wires are for grounding, however these light fixtures don't have any green wires. There's a lot of broken appliances around my apartment building so if could I cut off some of their cords I totally will.

Here's the bag of screw type things included with the light fixtures. The green screw and some sort of washer thing are circled in green


Here's a picture of what the box says about the green screw:

(no where else is grounding mentioned on any of the writing on the box)

Would I need to buy a switch? Or could I just unplug it to turn it off?

I am definitely interested in trying to make these things work, if I don't have to buy anything else. Rides to store=hard to come by + more expense. Plus these light fixtures were like 10 dollars cheaper than the other seemingly complete strip lights at Lowes.

Are wire nuts what's included in the picture of those screws I included?

hmmm....I will see if I can get some of those for free. There are construction people around doing things today...maybe they have wirenuts...

Our apartment building's basement is loaded with stuff from people who got evicted, lease ran out, etc and never came back for their stuff. haha, it's like an all-you-can-take buffet! There must be some stuff down there that has grounding wires.