indoor A few concerns with my indoors grow

F

factspot

Hello everyone,
 
I've been growing a few plants indoors (two habaneros, one banana pepper) since April, just to see how well it would go. I started with a 27W daylight CFL and a LED bulb like this. It was clearly not enough, because the plants almost didn't grow since June. Since I wanted to grow peppers (for real) this winter inside, I decided to take the plunge and buy some more decent stuff. I bought this LED light and this grow tent.
 
I topped my habanero plant on August 15, and moved it along with the other plants inside my new grow tent under my new LED lights on August 19.
 
Now it's been almost two weeks since I have my new setup, and I'm a bit worried about the results I'm getting. Here are 3 concerns I have.
 
1. Here is my habanero that I topped Aug 15 : https://i.imgur.com/CsQMn7y.jpg. While the two weeks recovery from topping is not too bad, it looks kind of "sad" - the new growth looks like it's running away from the light instead of growing towards it. Maybe I worry for too much, I don't know. That's why I'm asking here because I'm just a beginner and I know there is good knowledge on this forum.
 
2. Here is my banana pepper plant : https://i.imgur.com/2zztq0J.jpg. The leaves are pretty pale (not too obvious on the picture I know), and some leaves (including most of the new growth) seem to just die (can be seen on the picture). I picked a few that had fallen, they become all soft, the ends start to curl and they fall. I gave it some 24-8-16 fertilizer twice in the last 6 weeks maybe. I don't understand what's happening.
 
3. Here are a few seedlings I planted last week : https://i.imgur.com/KoCy2Km.jpg. Yesterday they were all open and today they completely closed like this. Are they trying to send me a message?
 
I have my LED lights about 3 feet from the floor, which is about 18 inches from the top of the grown plants and 2 feet above my seedlings. They are on from 5AM to 10:30PM. The temperature in the grow tent is always between 26°C and 30°C (79°F to 86°F). I water only when the top of the soil is dry.
 
I know it's a lot of text / questions, sorry for that! If you can help me with these concerns / some of these concerns, it would be very appreciated! If you need more information, just let me know :)
 
Thank you!
 
Just some thoughts...

Habanero - looks ok. Might just need some time adjusting. You have changed its environment

Banana - I would check to see if it's drainage is ok. Poke a pencil into the bottom drain holes and check if you have excessive moisture

Seedlings - I had a similar issue and my problem was paraheliotropism. Basically plant is trying to avoid the sun due to insufficient moisture availability. If you got some shade cloth lying about cover the seedlings and see if they open up. Light might be a bit harsh for them.
 
First I have a suggestion.... when you take pictures of your plants for posting it's a good idea to take the pictures with your plants under "white" light.  Put them under CFL or something and turn off the LED's. Pull them out of the tent if you have to. The reason is that the it is difficult to tell if the leaves are healthy under the Red/Blue LED lights. 
 
Then:
 
1)  Habanero looks good enough. When you change the environment (soil or lighting) it can take a LONG time to adjust.  I changed from T5 to VIPARSPECTRA and didn't see any new growth for weeks !
2) Hard to tell what it looks like under the Red/Blue LED... but I had Hungarian Yellow Wax (me thinks) that looked a lot like yours. Never recovered. Couldn't find the "cure". Moved it outside and it still looked...sick. Made a few small peppers.
3) Not completely sure, but in this case you just let it do its thing. Don't need super intense light at this stage. Maybe move it to a dim corner or something. Otherwise they look OK.
 
Jeff
 
Thanks for the feedback!
 
First of all, here is the picture of the banana pepper plant under normal daylight : https://i.imgur.com/d2WfVed.jpg
 
1. I'll leave the habanero do its thing then. It doesn't look very bad so I'll just wait a few weeks and see if normal development resumes.
 
2. I checked the bottom of the banana pepper plant pot as KAOS suggested but everything seems normal. Not wet but not too dry. At this point I'm not sure what I should do - maybe as MNXR250R's plant there's just nothing really to do
 
3. I moved the seedlings to the floor of the grow tent, shaded a bit by leaves of other plants. This morning it's back to normal I think. I will wait and see today if it happens again; if it does, I will try to lay a shade cloth over them as MNXR250R's suggested and see if it improves. In the meantime, I will go get a humidity meter to complement my thermometer. Maybe there is an issue there and I don't even know.
 
Thank you very much, I enjoy reading your feedback! If you have anything to add, keep it coming :)
 
One other thing .. do you get any water on your leaves when you water your plants. Looks like you got some sun burn on that banana from water accumulation.
 
If it doesn't pick up then I would consider re-potting it as a last resort. Might be worth a try.
 
@KAOS I doubt there's ever been any water on these leaves when watering. The plant stayed indoors all the time, and I watered directly at the base of the plant. I might have sprayed some epsom salt water on the leaves once or twice, but this was back when it was under a 30w LED and 30W CFL, so I doubt it was powerful enough to burn the leaves. I'll definitely keep that in mind tho for future reference!
 
I tried covering the seedlings with a ziploc bag to increase available moisture (and slightly weaken the light) but it didn't help, the leaves closed again yesterday (in the morning they were fine, but it seems that everyday as the day progresses they slowly close).
 
Thank you very much for the advice!
 
PS: @willard3 I wanted to edit my posts to include images directly instead of linking to them but I can't edit - maybe I don't have enough posts yet to have this privilege?
 
factspot said:
PS: @willard3 I wanted to edit my posts to include images directly instead of linking to them but I can't edit - maybe I don't have enough posts yet to have this privilege?
Click to expand...
 
I've noticed I only have about 5 days to edit a post, not sure if that is a standard policy.
 
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