From new to lost sanity, in a few short months...

Hi all, 
 
A complete newbie here - long time lurker, first time poster and undertaking my first real grow outside of a few plants on windowsill. Will swing by the Intro's in the next few days to say a proper Hi!
 
I live in the Wellington region of New Zealand, where it's just not overly warm most of the time.
 
(Around 22`c/70`f through summer days and 15`c/60`f or so over night, with too much wind. It's then 12`c/54`f in winter down to 0`c overnight, with way too much wind). Nights are pretty erratic, with frosts occurring when you think they shouldn't, and to add to it, we're often in drought for most of the summer. Much of the problem is that we're very much effected by microclimates, meaning from one place to another (even a 10 minutes drive apart) there's a fairly, sometimes dramatic, different set of humidity, temperature, frost, wind/wind chill factors - we've only recently bought the property, so am not sure of the specifics of where we are.
 
Basically, it's not great for peppers...
 
...so I thought I would take them purely indoors and eliminate many of the factors. Winter is coming, and being an impatient man, this will let me indulge the budding addiction as soon as I want to.
 
We've a pretty warm house so I'm taking advantage of that - even when it's single digit `c outside, both the garage and my office sit around 70`f-80`f. I'll be choosing which location, dependant on what my wife decides I am allowed to do, over the coming weeks.
 
I've started 4 varieties as an experiment, with results I am happy with to date:
 
Early Jalapeno
Chocolate fatali
Santa Fe Grande
Filius Blue
 
I'll be planting, likely over the next month, around 8 other varieties. Will give this lot a bit of time, first, to see how well I mess them up.
 
I've a bit of an unusual setup (?) to date (I think, anyway - not something I've seen) - had some cheap 14w or 18w panels lying around, which I used to use for microgreens, so I thought I'd give them a go. I've no idea what I am doing other than conceptually, so why not add to that potential for failure with a bit of something different on top?
 
Once my babies these seedlings are bigger, they'll go under 36 watt blue/red led single bulbs, which I've read on here have had fairly good success. They've been 'sprouted' for about 8-9 days now.
 
To start with, though, here's my 'grow room':
 

 
 
Here they are in their wee pyramid of light:
 

 
This was taken yesterday:
 

 
(Top left around clockwise: Early Jalapeno, Chocolate fatali, Santa Fe Grande, Filius Blue)
 
(Apologies for the average quality of photo - wasn't the best lighting in the room and the focus is not keen on the height of the subjects).
 
Not sure what the deal is with the Filius - there're two almost black plants and one fairly green on... will monitor it.
 
 
My main question at this point is: when should I separate them?
 
I over-seeded and got 100% germination... so, oh what a shame, I have to have more plants than I originally thought! They've big 3" jiffy's so there's a bit of room for movement around them, but I'm not sure of when to split so they are strong enough, but without having to tear the roots apart too much.
 
Any advice would be appreciated!
 
I'll keep popping updates in every few days or as/if things get interesting. All quite exciting for me, but it's not what many of you are used to in terms of volume - thanks for taking the time to have a look, none the less. 
 
Great community here, by the way - you all seem exceptionally knowledgeable and friendly. Something hard to find.
 
 - GS

 

[GiantSmasher]

Thanks everyone!
 
Not sure how big they're going to get inside before I can bare to risk them outside - it may be that my spare room is going to be a pepper room, as well as the garage... I have until November, though, as they'll have to vacate the spare room to make room for a new addition to the family. Will absolutely wait for (what passes for) summer here. 
 
 
Don't worry filmost, will get some more up soon - even since the last pics they've bushed out a stupid amount.
 
 

Loving the new set-up. What are the specs on the new lights?

 
Cheers CN, the new lights are cheap and cheerful 25 watt LED "T5 tubes" at 1.2m (~4') each, pushing 2400lm cold while light. Have some 0.90 (~3') 'white' 4500k lights coming too, as they fit the shelf better.
 
I figured, to hit the 3k lm mark per ft2, I needed 5 per 'linear' foot along their length (2400lm*5 = 12,000lm along the 4', or 3k lm/ft). The area I'm using is about 1.5' wide by 4' long, so chucked 8 up. 
 
From kind of scraggly plants to plants dumping massive growth out, in just a couple of weeks, they've left me pretty darned impressed!
 
Link to the lights - $12.50 each, have to buy 15 at once, works out to $62.50 for 4 square feet (don't know if that's good or not, but I'm pretty happy with it nonetheless, and hella cheaper than the local shops here from what I could see).
 
That company is sometimes a bit slow on shipping but once they ship they'll be there in a couple of days, and really good company to deal with overall - my experience is they're certainly not one of the dodgy ones on aliexpress (3 orders from them plus one more on the way, 2 unrelated to peppers).
 
(~$15 bucks a piece in NZD, so not too bad - local Mitre10 was WAY more expensive for a lot less).

 

[Big Kahuna]

Thanks for the info GS. That seems like a pretty good deal. I'll be interested in seeing your results, as I will be building new grow shelves for next season and I may try something similar to your setup.

And congratulations on the upcoming addition!

 

[GiantSmasher]

Thanks, ChiliNoob - scary times!
 
Quick update:
 
Got a massive psyllid issue... which I dealt with, but not without some losses. I'm still to take stock of exactly what I've lost, but was in the region of 5 plants, 3 of which were simply were moved outside ("quarantined" 2x seedling and 1x big 'un - and buggered if I know how, but they've live through two massive frosts! Not counting chickens yet though). Will see what the damage is when I can bring myself to do so. 
 
As you can see from the photo's, I've also had to chop a number of larger plants - this was done to stop the infestation, where 5 adult psyllids has laid eggs absolutely all fookin' over the tops of the plants. The eggs are tiny and all over the edges of all the leaves, and will not come off without risking leaving many behind - so they got the chop. Thankfully, they're growing back with no issues.
 
Just a minor setback!
 
 
 
Also changed shelves completely - the others sagged out and just didn't hold near the weight they were supposed to, so took them back for a refund. Have some nicer, albeit narrower, steel jobbies now.
 
On to the pics -
 
 
You can see the ones that have been chopped down to their lowest levels here, and some of the ones that escapes psyllid-egging:
 

 
Very interesting to see the growth patterns (next photo) compared to the lights - 'dome-ing' in the middle where the lights are. Had not noticed until I took the pics (they're a bit of a sea of green when viewed from above, and I'm looking for more psyllids or for water needs rather than growth most of the time). 
 
Time to do some shuffling, methinks.
 
 

 
A poor photo of the ones on the bottom shelf - will let a few of them bush out again, then top them, after I had to remove many psyllid-egged leaves.
 

 
And the whole setup - 'scuse the buckets, they're holding up some seedlings.
 

 
Cheers for dropping by!