Can ya post a picture? I am curious what the foliage looks like. How is the color? Are they filling in and staying short?

dj

Are you turning the light off at night? There is such a thing as having too much light. Essentially, plants use light to make food, everyone knows that. But what many people don't realize is that, much like humans, most plants use the dark hours to repair themselves and grow. Basically they put all their energy into making food during the day, then eat that food and grow at night.

If you keep high intensity lights on them 24/7, you'll stunt their growth. Turn it off at night for a good 6-8 hours at a time and let them get a little sleep.

I run my lights 16/8. I had a heating pad under my plants for a few weeks Amd the indoor temp got to 84 a few times so could this be from overheated roots?

Sorry I forgot to add the photo

Judging from the appearance of your seedlings, I think they are just fine. That tells me that your are doing it right.
As far as the growth rate, I would say : be patient. You probably know that most chinense grow very slowly.
Now wait for more expert advice and comments.

Seysonn

I once had a problem when my grow light was too intense. The plants were annums, but I started noticing that all of the leaves on the plant were very small--even the mature leaves were roughly the size of a quarter or maybe smaller.

But in my case the real kicker was that after a long period of time, the plants were desperately growing every direction but up. The plant started to fan outwards a little bit, and some of the leaves were clustered in so tight that they were directly overlapping other leaves.

Based on your pictures, I don't quite believe you are experiencing what is described above. Your plants still look very young, based on the number of leaves. I agree with Seysonn, sit tight and keep watching. Hope this helps!

Sometimes they like to take their time the Bhut x neyde in the front pot was started the same time as the ones in the background that are setting peppers ( September 28th). It seems that it is starting to finally start growing, there was also another DeNeyde that sat for about a month then grew a foot in a week. So if they look healthy give them time and as far as the space between leaves close is better let the stalk develop then when the plant grows it will support itself and not want to fall over or reach for the light.

You might want to try and increase light intensity with reflectors or have a look at what frert you are using and if you are using filtered water you have to replace nutrients the filters remove.

Here a better photo of what it looks like.