Couple questions about new peppers.

Hooray, USPS just dropped off a shipment of new pepper plants from Piedmond Farms!  Aleppo, 7 Pot Brain Strain, Mucho Nacho jalapeno, and Moruga Chocolate Scorpion (not pictured).  Three of them, I'm surprised to see, aparently have 2 plants per container - but not the Scorpion for some reason.  It's a nice surprise since I only ordered one of each, I assume for pollination reasons.  I have them sitting outside in the 3" containers for now to acclimate before transplanting into 5 gallon buckets.
 
Let's pretend like you're talking to a complete growing novice.  In fact, don't pretend, because I am
 
My question is when I transplant them, do I need to separate them into their own buckets or leave them paired up as they are?  If this is a really dumb question please forgive me, I'm just a little confused because I wasn't expecting TWO of each plant in the same little container when I thought I was only getting one of each (not complaining though), and it's odd that they're literally planted right next to eachother in the containers instead of spaced apart at least a little.  I assume the root balls are totally tangled up and will be a pain in the ass to separate.
 
Also, you can see that the Aleppo plants are already flowering.  I was under the impression that this wasn't going to happen on such young plants.  You think it's OK to let it keep flowering this early, or trim that off and let it happen later in the season?  This may be completely normal as far as I know, but like I said I'm a complete novice so I'm having to learn as I go
 
As always, thanks in advance for any input!
 

I would seperate them. Peppers make perfect flowers and so can pollinate themselves.
You can rinse the root ball under water if you have trouble seperating them.
 
In regards to the flower, that's up to you. If the plant is not ready it will drop off anyway. The plant should continue to grow just fine assuming it has enough space to continue to expand its roots & enough nutes to feed it properly.

     Just snip off the weaker of the two plants in the pot. And remove flowers until the plants are established in their new homes (maybe a week or so depending on conditions).
     Good luck!

Yes separate them carefully transplant them at night. Don't worry about the flower. It will fall off if you give you peppers higher nitrogen for the veg cycle. Cut back your N in a few weeks and add P12 and K44 to your feeding. It will blow up with flowers.

You should read the pinned area in this section (growing hot peppers)....it will help

+1 for separation. If they are nice, healthy plants, is too bad to kill one (sorry, I am at work now, some stuff are filtered by our network, can't see the pictures....).
Wet well the soil, let it for a bit to get really wet, this will help to separate the plants. At least this is how I do it.

robbyjoe01 said:

You should read the pinned area in this section (growing hot peppers)....it will help

Click to expand...

Good recommendation, I'm overdue to read that all the way through anyway.
Thanks folks, I think I know what to do now. The extra plants are definitely filling up my little patio (target was 8 plants, now i have 11) I just cant justify not keeping them all without even trying.

Again, thanks everyone.

If ya got a back forty or a spot in the yard why not plant em and forget em. If you get something fine if not no harm no foul

I vote to separate also, and just like @nzchili mentioned, I would suggest to wash the soil out of the roots with water, this will make separating them MUCH easier.

I know everyone here will say separate. I don't always separate and usually the two seedlings will fuze together as they grow up. But also im not growing for mass production anymore.

There is no reason but OCD for separating the chiles. Leave them alone, they will be fine.

Nice selection of plants and I agree they are too big to separate anymore.  Just buy some quality potting soil and pot them as they are, good luck!

Interesting, sounds like we have a split opinion here.  Several voices saying separate, several saying don't.
 
Well I ended up separating them.  Got the sink running with lukewarm water and massaged the rootballs under it.  They all came apart without too much frustration and no damage that I can see.  I was pretty lucky that the roots weren't completely swallowing each other.
 
Also, after further research I've decided to let the flower buds stay.  Seems like if they're not really ready to flower then the plant will get rid of them by itself.  Found a couple examples of peppers growing just as well by not pinching off early buds.  Let's hope that's right, we'll see.  Also because I found a nice quote from a member here while searching a similar topic - paraphrasing "Your plants don't want your help as much as you think they do.  Leave them alone."