you have lots of options to choose from, i built my dwc out of stuff that i had laying around the house. don't do the tower thing, i think any pictures you see with plants in the tower are most likely some form of annual, like lettuce and die after awhile - thus you are replacing with fresh seedlings every so often. your peppers are perennial and will live for quite awhile depending on variety and you really have to provide the proper space for rooting. plus, in the tower solution a pump pushes the nutrient water up to the plant, then flows back down into the resevoir, one nasty snow storm that knocks power out and you better be home to hand water your plants or the roots will dryout and the plant will die. using a bubble system your nutrient tank remains in place with only evapouration as means of removing water(barring any leaks), once your roots push into the nutrient solution, if your air pump dies or power goes out, the roots are still feeding the plant.
i use cheap lighting because i don't have the setup to install a proper overhead arrangement. i am working on that. i also use rockwool and the holders(cups) are small recycled yogurt cups.
all plants were started in a heated germination mini greenhouse that you can buy at walmart. once rooting was established, i moved the plants into rockwool that i soaked for a few hours. then, fed the plant so a piece of the root exited the cup and just touched the water. at first i had the air pump on constantly but now i have in on a timer and it runs 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening. the real key is to get the rooting system to take, if that doesn't happen you won't see good growth. i have had to use rooting hormone on some of the plants due to poor rooting development(perhaps i moved them from germination too soon).
you are directly below me by about a 6 hour drive, i am guessing, so imagine we share similar weather, there is no need to cool your water resevoir.
here is a quick snapshot of my system. all the plants are of various ages. most are chinense hotties. on the right hand side of the picture are 2, 1.5 litre mayonaise plastic tubs that are being feed by a 10 gallon air pump with splitter. the plants are rocoto(front), fatalii(back), both are about 10" in height. on the left hand side are 2 small totes that i converted, each has room for 8 plants.
as you can see i have to move some of the larger ones to soil as the over shadow the other plants, once their rooting system gets established. these 2 buckets are being feed by a 80 gallon dual output air pump($20), that i did buy recently when i moved the fatalii and rocoto out of these buckets. the middle bucket has a yellow scorpian back left and dorset naga back right. the middle mess has butchT, bombay morich, yellow bhut and a superchili(that i move from soil into hydro). front left is an indian carbon bhut and right is a chocolate bhut. the left bucket has a douglah at the back and chocolate habanero. in the centre is a small datil(that i moved from soil) and it shares the same cup with a scotch bonnet, another bombay morich and another datil. front are yellow 7, barackpore(covered with a fruit cup) and bonda ma jacques.
think i covered everything. oh, nutrient solution is a mix of stuff but the core is granular tomato fertilizer(15-15-30).
. Thoughts?
