Hey everyone! I am glad to have found a pepper specific forum where lots of other people understand the urge to create artifical environments and control them
Not sure why, but I have recently become addicted to eating fresh habaneros! There is this complex aroma and taste that you get before the hotness kicks in that I haven't tasted in other peppers. So even though I can barely tolerate the heat and it takes me a while to eat one, I can't seem to stop craving them. I cooked some with meat and cheese then was sad to have run out.... so decided why not grow some! But oh nos it's winter soon... better grow them indoors
I've also been itching to try my hand at hydroponics, so it was a perfect match. I am a big DIY LED nut for SW aquariums so I had all kinds of extra LED's from past projects. I ended up making a 100w fixture using mostly Cree LEDs. This made the project "cheap" for me as I had sunk costs already.
LEDs:
7x Cree XPG R2 bin, Cool White
8x Cree XR-E Q5 bin, Cool White
4x Cree XR-E Royal Blue
6x Cree XM-L Warm White
2x Cree XP-E Red
2x Luxeon Rebel Far Red
2x Luxeon Rebel Amber
Drivers:
The XP-G's are on a non dimmable, 24w Xitanium supply.
The White and Blue XR-E's are on a dimmable Meanwell 60-48D power supply.
The Warm XM-Ls and Red LEDs are on a separate Meanwell 60-48D
You can see the potentiometers on the right-front of the black box. Also got some pulleys to give the lights about a foot of adjustment range.
All of the LED's use Total Internal Reflections optics by Carclo. I first tried a mix of medium and some narrow lenses, but there was too much spotlighting unless you get a few feet away. Ended up using all Wide lenses.
Hydroponics:
Deep Water Culture, 2 plants in a 4g reservoir, water level a few inches below net pots.
GeneralHydro nutrients, only Bloom and Micro. This is known as the Lucas formula.
The correct thing to do would have been to use seeds and start from there, but I was impatient. I ordered some plants off amazon. Thought they would be young by the description (2"pot), but they arrived with a date, showing age 95 days. You can bet they were very rootbound and hard to transplant, but they made it! They even came with a few immature peppers already, but all the flowers fell off in the box in shipping.
Sadly I didn't take pictures until they were transplanted into my DWC system for about 10 days, but the leaves were all really curly like kale on arrival. They also had a slug, a few aphids and whiteflies. I have learned my lesson, pests in this hobby are just as pervasive as in the coral trade it would seem.
The first few days of hydro, the plants both turned pale yellow and dropped bottom leaves. I think I had the waterlevel too high (1" below netpots) so have since increased the airgap to 2.5" and it really helped. Dropping stopped, and gradually things started looking up.
The plants after 10 days. The pepper on the right had grown and turned red already. The redness happened literally inside 12 hours. I think stress may have accelerated it. The leaves look messed up. They are more yellow than when they arrived, but less kale-like.
The plants were pretty sparse with almost no small leaves and only 1 flower, and three peppers.
Here are the roots after the same 10 days. The darker yellow ones came from original soil, but the white shoots were all new and reaching into the solution.
Not sure why, but I have recently become addicted to eating fresh habaneros! There is this complex aroma and taste that you get before the hotness kicks in that I haven't tasted in other peppers. So even though I can barely tolerate the heat and it takes me a while to eat one, I can't seem to stop craving them. I cooked some with meat and cheese then was sad to have run out.... so decided why not grow some! But oh nos it's winter soon... better grow them indoors
I've also been itching to try my hand at hydroponics, so it was a perfect match. I am a big DIY LED nut for SW aquariums so I had all kinds of extra LED's from past projects. I ended up making a 100w fixture using mostly Cree LEDs. This made the project "cheap" for me as I had sunk costs already.
LEDs:
7x Cree XPG R2 bin, Cool White
8x Cree XR-E Q5 bin, Cool White
4x Cree XR-E Royal Blue
6x Cree XM-L Warm White
2x Cree XP-E Red
2x Luxeon Rebel Far Red
2x Luxeon Rebel Amber
Drivers:
The XP-G's are on a non dimmable, 24w Xitanium supply.
The White and Blue XR-E's are on a dimmable Meanwell 60-48D power supply.
The Warm XM-Ls and Red LEDs are on a separate Meanwell 60-48D
You can see the potentiometers on the right-front of the black box. Also got some pulleys to give the lights about a foot of adjustment range.
All of the LED's use Total Internal Reflections optics by Carclo. I first tried a mix of medium and some narrow lenses, but there was too much spotlighting unless you get a few feet away. Ended up using all Wide lenses.
Hydroponics:
Deep Water Culture, 2 plants in a 4g reservoir, water level a few inches below net pots.
GeneralHydro nutrients, only Bloom and Micro. This is known as the Lucas formula.
The correct thing to do would have been to use seeds and start from there, but I was impatient. I ordered some plants off amazon. Thought they would be young by the description (2"pot), but they arrived with a date, showing age 95 days. You can bet they were very rootbound and hard to transplant, but they made it! They even came with a few immature peppers already, but all the flowers fell off in the box in shipping.
Sadly I didn't take pictures until they were transplanted into my DWC system for about 10 days, but the leaves were all really curly like kale on arrival. They also had a slug, a few aphids and whiteflies. I have learned my lesson, pests in this hobby are just as pervasive as in the coral trade it would seem.
The first few days of hydro, the plants both turned pale yellow and dropped bottom leaves. I think I had the waterlevel too high (1" below netpots) so have since increased the airgap to 2.5" and it really helped. Dropping stopped, and gradually things started looking up.
The plants after 10 days. The pepper on the right had grown and turned red already. The redness happened literally inside 12 hours. I think stress may have accelerated it. The leaves look messed up. They are more yellow than when they arrived, but less kale-like.
The plants were pretty sparse with almost no small leaves and only 1 flower, and three peppers.
Here are the roots after the same 10 days. The darker yellow ones came from original soil, but the white shoots were all new and reaching into the solution.