I'm not the guy to answer any of your questions with certainty but I did want to say that your grow system looks pretty impressive!

i am gonna have people disagree with me on this but here goes. No that will not be enough light to raise adult plants. flouros loose so much light when they are raised even a foot above the plants. remember that the bottom leaves need light too. what you have will do a pretty good job starting the plants but will cause them to stretch later. it would be better to under water them than over water because too much water will definitely cause stretching .
I transplant as soon as the roots hit the bottom of the cup. i have found that if you allow the roots to wrap even the smallest bit that it will cause a slow down in growth when transplanted.
as far as topping goes i top my plants when i get the 4th set of true leaves. just pinch the top set off. this will also help with the stretching and allow your plants to remain in your setup a little longer as the light will be able to penetrate to the bottom leaves better.

6- 50w lamps (what you have) will bring maybe 2 plants to fruit/adulthood.

Cooler temps also keep them from stretching upwards too fast. What's the grow box's temperature without the space heater?

If ambient temps are warm enough, then you could do without the space heater, or just throw two more 4ft light assemblies on the sides. This way they'll provide extra warmth and extra lumens for underneath the leaf canopy, it'll also use a lot less electricity than a space heater.

Are you looking for it to fully fruit indoors? Or did you plan on most of your fruit outside in the spring/summer? If you had outside in mind, then you sorta started early, plants take up tons of space and light, then you get the fungus gnats, then aphids/mites overwintering inside waiting for your next grow season. Most of us start in late Jan + Feb for the late season varieties, the earliest birds sometimes start in December but personally i find that way too early for climate zone 6.

This post was edited by sjetski on Mon, Nov 18, 13 at 18:11

Thanks guys I appreciate the info!! and yeah I did start them early, I wasnt planning on growing anything crazy until it became a addiction. Another question reguarding the light in my box; are there any safe/cost efficient lights other than flouros I could start using that are better but wont burn my house down?

There's a few very certain good LED assemblies at $100 or less. Unfortunately i don't remember their model numbers, but the user-reviews at Amazon may clue you in.

Or you can pick up a few of those cheap T5 units at Walmart. They daisy chain together, and plants love the spectrum they put out, and will actually bend away from other lights to face them. Around $10-$13 for the 23" assembly, comes in a blister pack with bulb, daisy chain cables and mounting hardware. There are smaller ones for less, you'll find them all in the lightbulb or light fixture aisles. The bulb is 4200K color temp, which to me is a perfect middle ground.

Steve

This post was edited by sjetski on Tue, Nov 19, 13 at 8:30

I bought 48" - T8 shoplight (from HD) that fits 2 tubes. It cost about $20 all together. It is all wired up with cord ready to pug in. I bough 6500k bulbs.
The T5 size (same length) costs about $40 with bulbs. I think the T8 version is more cost effective.

If you have jury rigged/lousy wiring or electrical stuff, that's what will burn your house down.

Electrical stuff in the EUA has to pass underwriters (UL) requirements and is very safe.

I use compact flouros to start my plants. the lights are both 65 w compacts. the one on the left is a flouro security light that I got from lowes for about 35 bucks and disassembled and rewired.it is 6500k I think. the one on the right is a compact that I also got from lowes. it is 4500k. the color contrast works good for a full spectrum. would love to upgrade to t5's one day but this works pretty good too

I like to keep the light bulbs almost touching the leaves. As they get taller, raise the fixtures. Then, the side lights might come into play here. My light fixtures are almost side by side(touching parallel) to each other. What sjetski said about keeping them compact. Warmth helps w/germingation.
Gary

I started with T5 fluorescent for my seedlings. Since I'm overwintering my plants this year, I bought a 400w metal halide that comes with an HPS bulb also. I got the Apollo Horticulture GLK400GW19 for $125 on Amazon and LOVE it. My plants love it too. It has a separate ballast, so the light isn't that heavy. And the cords are long enough to do almost anything you need. It even came with a pulley-system that was nice, because my plants grew super fast.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004YXDHX6

That is an awesome little set-up you have for germinating kypepperman! Thanks willard3 for the light hazard info. hey loweride, does isnt it kind of expensive to run those lights?

It is a lot cheaper than my cable bill. ;)
I have the 400w MH, a 175w MH, and a fan going. At $0.10 per Kwh and running 18 hours a day, I figure it is about a buck a day. I'm willing to pay that for some sweet plants.
It is a lot cheaper than going to Starbucks and I can just have one less soda a day to pay for it.

Moruga, you still reading this thread? You will easily get peppers to maturity with that set up (10 plants might be crowded though). But what I would do is keep them in much smaller pots than 10" pots so the plants don't get big and you don't get those problems people have mentioned about poor light on the bottom. I have brought peppers to maturity in 4" pots under a T8 shop-light set up, but I usually use 6" pots to get bigger plants and more peppers. Here's some Nagas from about a year ago... grown entirely under T8s, started in July and the photo was taken in December. There's also some cayenne or Thai type in the background...

Don555 that looks like an awesome group of peppers. So you got them to fully fruit and mature under just t8's? I feel like I have been told 100 times that it's not possible because I don't have enough intensity. I have added another light fixture for a total of 8 t8's now. I'm actually going to buy a led light soon then use these just for germination and young growth. I have done lots of little things in the meantime like topping and adding more survival blanket material for reflection. What is a good fertilizer I should use?

Yep, from seed to fruit, all under 2 shop lights running 2 bulbs each of T8s (total of 4 bulbs). I'm not sure why so many people claim this isn't possible, since peppers are one of the few plants that actually do exceptionally well under fluoro bulbs from seed to maturity. (As opposed to say tomatoes, which do well for 6 weeks, then go leggy). A naturally short, or a naturally spreading pepper plant works best, some of the aggressively upright-growing plants can be more difficult to control, but frequent snipping along with crowding them in small pots can deal with that.

I've never used LEDs for peppers, so can't comment there.

I don't use reflective blanket material, I just drape an old white bedsheet over the lights to trap some heat and reflect some light back to the plants (many people will warn you not to do this because of fire danger... I don't know if this presents a real risk or an imaginary one... I have done it for decades without incident, but it only takes once to regret it I suppose...)

I use any balanced fertilizer... usually 20-20-20. Since my plants are usually overcrowded into small pots, I water and fertilize regularly.

A few other peppers I've grown entirely from seed to maturity under my shop lights...

BTW, I don't use any fans or heaters, I just use the heat from the lights to add a bit of warmth in my otherwise chilly basement. Pepppers don't seem to mind.

I no longer use my heater but I do need fans because it's in a box. I still can't believe how nice those plants look. How often do you fert and what kind do you use?

Thanks. I use 20-20-20 fertilizer. Timing and amount is just kind of guesswork. When the plants are just ripening peppers I don't fertilize very often. When they tiny I don't fertilize often. When they are actively growing and/or setting fruit I fertilize at least once a week.

For T8 lights, I use one cool white and one warm white bulb in each fixture. One is supposed to stimulate vegetative growth and the other flowers, but I forget which is which so I mix-and-match.

Wrapping the pots is pointless - except that it does look cool. The reflective material inhibits the pot taking up heat better than it does the pot losing it with the reflective side out.

I too would have said that there isn't enough light, but my experience isn't with raising peppers indoors. For alternative lighting look at web sites for growing marijuana. In terms of energy requirements pot and peppers are similar.

Dennis

Here is one I topped maybe like 2 weeks ago

Ok thanks for the fertilizer info don555. DMForcier, I didn't think it would do much but I noticed dark colors reflect and cause more of a dark look, but when I wrapped everything with the reflective material, it made it brighter. How cold do your temps get around your peppers guys?

Better shot of my plants size right now. I think it's been 2 months

Mine are in the basement and as we get deeper into winter it can get kind of chilly at night, maybe 14C (57F) or so. Right now a bit warmer than that at night. By day (I think have them on 14h days, maybe 16h?), it depends how much I cover the grow area with cloth. Last year I kept it mostly covered so it was probably 25C (77F) by day, but this year I've got it a bit more open, so maybe a few degrees lower.

Moruga, your plants look very healthy, they should do fine. One thing I should mention is that last year I had trouble getting Nagas to set pollen indoors, so I grew an annum as well that I used as a pollen source. This year I have an annum growing as well but the Nagas seem to be producing pollen well on their own this year so I can pollinate directly from other Nagas.

My plants are ahead of yours, but I started mine in late July so it's been 4.5 months so far. A few pics from today:

My set up (3 Nagas, each in a 6" pot, plus an annum in a 4" pot hiding behind, as well as some pots of basil, an air plant, a sundew, and a succulent hiding somewhere:

Close up of an individual plant:

Peppers forming:

M ... that is a good size and healthy plant , for 2 months. I am sure is is going to be a nice bushy one.

I started TEST germinating. But I think I've got stuck.
I am growing under T8 s,. I have got the ones that are close to Grow Light , called Daylight Delux by Phillips. I am not an expert. The guy at HD said it is better.

Oh, wrapping for light reflection does make sense. Don't know why I thought is was for heat control...

My outdoor plants are mostly in pots (I have a few volunteers still in the ground). Air temps got down to 21F but the plants were grouped together with the volunteers and covered with a sheet and a tarp. Obviously the soil temps never got down to freezing, but where the branches were in contact with the coverings the leaves got bit. The Koreans are quite small and many of the leaves got bit.

As to how low were the temps under the cover I don't know as I don't have a recording thermometer but I would wager that mid 30s would be about right.

A couple nights I've left the lot uncovered when air temps where down around 34-35F with no ill effect.

Peps might not like low temps very much, but they survive quite well above freezing.

Dennis

Anybody know what this could be? I looked up symptoms to deficiency's and a few can relate to this problem.

I don't think that is any type of deficiency. Just looks like an older leaf that got physically damaged, probably either when transplanting or when bumping up against another pot.

It seems to happen wherever the leafs touch the pot. Any idea why this happens?