Help with lighting a 55gal on a budget

Hey guys, I've been lurking around here for a little bit now while waiting on my tank to show up. I've never done a planted tank and this is only my second tank. I'm still in the planning stages for the most part but I'm hoping to start cycling the tank tomorrow. The tank is 48(L)x12.75(W)x20.5(H) and 55 Gal.

I'm not going to be able to stock the tank very quickly so I'll be buying plants and fish slowly as I can afford to. I'm using the aquariumplants.com black substrate. I haven't decided on CO2, but I'm considering DIY or rigging up some of my paintball stuff.

I haven't fully figured out what kind of plants I want to keep. I really like the look some of the carpeting type plants give, something that resembles grass I think. I also like some of the swords I've seen. There are several other plants I've seen that I have liked, but I have trouble remembering the names of them. I'm not overly concerned with rapid growth, but I do want my plants to be healthy. As for fish, this will be a tropical community tank. Looking at dwarf gouramis, corydoras, rams and angels. Overall I get the idea that I need to be around a medium light level, or around 50 PAR.

I've considered DIY LED lighting, but on a tank this size it appears I would be spending at least $70 on LEDs alone (why the hell are high powered white LEDs so expensive?) and that would probably leave me with spotty coverage at best. The commercial LED products are insanely priced and the T8 and T5 strips I see at the local pet shops seem pretty high to me as well.

That leaves me looking for decent, but affordable lighting. If I end up having to spend more then $100 I'll probably just bite the bullet and DIY up some LEDs. On e-bay I found some cheap, no name lights and I'm curious what you guys think. http://goo.gl/vWZ1M Would this work, or would I be playing with fire going with something as unknown as this? I'm also open to suggestions if you all know of some reasonably priced good lighting.