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New Setup... Hots

I've been interested in growing Super Hots in their native environment. From what I have read, Ghost ( Naga Jolokia or Bhut Jolokia, ) grow in roughly 80degF heat, and very high humidity...average of 80 percent. Most other Super Hots have similar native environments. My research isn't exactly scientific. After all, until two weeks ago, I thought that the Ghost peppers originated in India.
 
So then here are pictures of my new grow tent. It's very small.  (2ft6in)x2 and almost (5ft11in) tall. To increase the headroom in my system, and to remove the root system from the grow tent itself (decrease the heat in the roots as well), I cut out the bottom of the tent so that the plant will grow UP into the tent.
 
This system is currently using a Re-circulating Deep Water Culture (RDWC) hydro setup.... General Hydroponics "Flora Series" with supplemental "Cal-Mag".  
 
The pictures:
 
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Since this is RDWC, the lower right bucket is the "maintenance bucket". The lower left will be open for the immediate future. Upper right will be the Reaper, and the upper Left will be the Bhut (Ghost). Those pics in a day or two.
 
I hope, with the addition of either whole room A/C, or the use of a nutrient chiller, I can grow some quality Super Hots. The details on the temperature and Humidity haven't been completely work out yet. Will keep the updates coming.
 
Happy Growing,
 
Jeff
 
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Beautiful plants!! Will also follow this thanks for all the great pics and info [emoji41]


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Creating a stable environment in a small space can be quite difficult. I'm still trying to get my grow tent configured. Just when I thought I had it figured out the weather cooled down so the furnace runs more often so I get temp swings in the basement that really affect the temps in the tent too, not to mention humidity fluctuations. Definitely have to order a humidity controller and a better humidifier soon, hopefully on payday.......
 
Hafners said:
Creating a stable environment in a small space can be quite difficult. I'm still trying to get my grow tent configured. Just when I thought I had it figured out the weather cooled down so the furnace runs more often so I get temp swings in the basement that really affect the temps in the tent too, not to mention humidity fluctuations. Definitely have to order a humidity controller and a better humidifier soon, hopefully on payday.......
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Humidity control. Exactly what I have been after !  I've been targeting a humidity of 70+ percent. For the HOTS.
 
Direct ventilation sucks every free water molecule out of the tent. Even if I add a humidifier, the venting makes the effort inefficient. In my case the local average humidity is low... like 30-40 percent. With the humidifier and direct venting I can expect the humidity in the the tent rise about no more than 5 percent. So what I end up with is adding 1 to 2 gallons of Distilled or RO water every day to keep the reservoir full.... That is a shit-load of water just to keep the humidity up!  Piss on that !
 
The plants, once they reach a certain maturity will evaporate a whole bunch of water. This will increase the humidity inside of the tent naturally. At this point, I do not actively vent the tent. I do not need to add a humidifier since the internal tent humidity rises. 
 
Two things I concern myself with are... The temperature of the nutrients (roots), and the amount of CO2 entering the tent.
 
I have root chiller (at about 72DegF) and a bunch of air-stones to keep the roots cool and oxygenated. For the CO2, I am relying on the vents on the tent (fully open) to give the gas exchange.... 
 
 So far the growth has been spectacular !!.... maybe too spectacular. I can't make these damn plants flower.
 
Anyway, Happy Growing !!
 
Jeff
 
I've had very impressive growth on these two plants (Reaper and Ghost) in the new set-up. No doubt about that. Ridiculous growth ! Sooner or later that growth needs to stop, and the plants should produce peppers.  That is why we do this... right ?
 
Last weekend I backed off on the nutes hoping to bring the plants to flower and fruit. So far though, the only change has been in the growth. It has slowed, and I am happy with that for now. The flowers are are still not opening fully, and they seem to be immature. All of them are dropping from the plant eventually.
 
At this point I'm thinking that it has only been a week since I cut back on nutes (Nitrogen mostly ), so I will wait and see what happens. Perhaps the plant has stored a lot of food in the roots and it will take some time for the plant to switch from growth to flower. If anyone has comments, I would appreciate them.
 
I've been using General Hydroponics Flora Series according to a schedule I downloaded. I'm thinking that this schedule is for Weed, but I don't know for sure. When I mix the prescribed solution, the TDS (cheap Amazon meter) usually hits around 1000 ppm. I cut back on the the last mix and now I'm at around 700 ppm. I think this is still too high, but I don't know. If anyone could advice I would appreciate it.
 
The temps in the tent are what I expect, and also what I am targeting. I have 90 DegF during lights ON, with a relative humidity of about 70-80 percent. (The roots and nutrient solution are always at 72 DegF). Once the lights go off the temps drop to around 75 DegF. The RH spikes to over 85 percent, but eventually drops into the low 60's. I had removed the humidifier a couple of weeks ago since the plants themselves keep the RH up.
 
No new pics as I don't see the need. The plants look the same as they did last weekend.
 
This system is sucking up about 1.5 gallons of water per day. Just the cost of the water makes this system fully and completely wasteful !!! But... I LOVE IT !!!!!    It's a hobby after all  :dance:
 
Any commentary would be greatly appreciated... and welcomed !
 
Happy Growing,
 
Jeff
 
Update on the project.  I'm running out of vertical space to grow. The Reaper is 42 inches tall, and only 11 inches from the HydroFarm CMh 315W.  I can't raise the light any more in this small tent.... run out of room.
 
The Bhut is 28 inches tall, and is 25 inches from the lamp. The Bhut is being shaded to some extent by the Reaper but is growing. It has a bunch of new flower pods and I'm hopeful that they will mature an produce.
 
Two weeks ago I was suffering from "flower drop" on the Reaper. Nutes too high ? Temps too high ?  Don't know. Today I have many new flowers, but I can't say that they are fully formed and will produce fruit.  I hate to say it, but I may have to cut down the Reaper since I've seen some "sunburn" on the upper leaves. I will let it grow until it suffers too much from the intense light.
 
I thought that Hydroponics would be the "easy" way to go.  I don't think that anymore !  Hydro is a fast system, and you have to watch it closely.... every day.
 
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Interested in your thoughts,
 
Jeff
 
 
 
Just a stab in the dark , you still have 11 inches to go , you want to harvest a few Reapers , don't cut back just yet.
Try to cut back on your light cycle, a lot. Something like 4 on, 8 off ,4 on ,8 off.
 
According to a few articles I've found, temps above 86f as far back as 15 days before the flowers open can cause pollen sterility. Once the fruit is set the plants can again tolerate more heat. I'd try to reduce temps a bit and see what happens over a couple weeks. Cycling the light as suggested might just be enough temp control to get them fruiting.

Very nice growth, there's no doubt the plants should be able to support some good yields.

Are you using net cups with hydroton, and what size?
 
karoo said:
Just a stab in the dark , you still have 11 inches to go , you want to harvest a few Reapers , don't cut back just yet.
Try to cut back on your light cycle, a lot. Something like 4 on, 8 off ,4 on ,8 off.
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Eleven inches from the lights now, and I'm seeing what I think is sunburn. Maybe it isn't... I don't know for sure.
 
I'm going to give the plants another week or so, then I may try to cut back on the lights (time).
 
Thanks Karoo !
 
Hafners said:
According to a few articles I've found, temps above 86f as far back as 15 days before the flowers open can cause pollen sterility. Once the fruit is set the plants can again tolerate more heat. I'd try to reduce temps a bit and see what happens over a couple weeks. Cycling the light as suggested might just be enough temp control to get them fruiting.

Very nice growth, there's no doubt the plants should be able to support some good yields.

Are you using net cups with hydroton, and what size?
Click to expand...
 
These two plants were germinated in Gro-Dan cubes. They are now in Hydroton clay pebbles.
 
If you are correct about the temperatures, I can easily correct that. I think I'll give that a shot. Could be a big part of my problem.
 
Thanks Hafners !!
 
Just a quick update.  I found that my pH meters (two of them) were off by 0.7 (readings were higher than they should be).  So when I kept my pH at 6.0, I was actually keeping at 5.3.  Not sure if that had anything to do with my "flowering" problem, but what do I know for sure.
 
I've taken the advice of some and reduced the nute PPM and dropped the temperatures.  Some of the newer flower look much better now.  I'm hopeful that in the next weeks I will get some fruit.
 
Will post some new pics in a week or so.
 
Jeff
 
Update on the Reapers and the Ghost peppers in my grow tent.
 
I had a major malfunction with my other grow tent due to my loving and generous wife ( I still love her... mostly ). See http://thehotpepper.com/topic/66546-sad-day-aphids-win-this-time/
 
The Aphid infestation has NOT found its way to my Reaper/ Ghost tent !!  At lease not yet.
 
But the good news of the day is that after all the fussing with trying different methods to get the Reapers/Ghost to produce quality flowers (let alone pollinate them), I witnessed a couple dozen really nice looking flowers spit out a cloud of pollen when I agitated them !!!!!  I have not seen this before in this tent so I am very, very hopeful that the future will be good to me.
 
Keeping it short,
 
Jeff 
 
Update.  Today I found at least 6 tiny peppers growing on the Reaper plant !!!  Today is a very, very happy day indeed :dance:  
 
For a while I thought I would have to start this project over since I was running out of grow space (vertical). But after cutting back the nitrogen I think the plant stopped growing upward, and started growing peppers instead.  I had also changed the light cycle and the temperature (which killed the humidity), so in the end I can't say what I did to force the plants to flower and produce. I suspect it was the nutes.... too much nitrogen for too long. From what other have commented on, I'm certain that the light cycle had nothing at all to do with the transition to fruiting, but I can't say so absolutely since I don't have data.
 
I have at least 150-200 flowers on this plant. Most are at the very early stages of development, and many dozen are fully open now. Pollen galore  :party:
 
I'll update once more when I get ripe peppers, or if SHTF.  Changing nutes again today after all !!!
 
Happy Jeff !!!
 
 
 
 
 
AvidLiving said:
Excellent write up. I actually really liked how you set up your rdwc level with the bottom of the tent.
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Avid, I don't think I ever specifically said "why" I cut out the bottom of the plant.  So then, the reason for me was nothing more than keeping the root zone out of the tent.  Since the inside of the tent can get very warm or even hot, I wanted the roots to remain cool so they would thrive. And they have indeed  :P
 
Thanks for the feedback !  I do appreciate all comments.
 
Jeff
 
Another update....
 
I have about 2 dozen peppers growing now. A couple of them are nearly full size. Still green but looking healthy.
 
The more that I observe the plant and think about what I did right and did wrong, the more I think that I gave this Reaper way too much nitrogen during the grow. It grew faster than I could keep up with it.
 
Once the flowers came along, I think that it was a combination of too much nitrogen and too much heat that cause the failures to produce fruit.  Perhaps one day I will know for sure whether too much nitrogen or too much heat was the cause of the continuous flower drop.
 
I also have an infestation of Aphids in my indoor grow (story elsewhere). So far I have been able to keep them under control (mechanical removal of infested leaves). I just know that one of these days those little pests are going to explode in growth inside of my tent.  I am hoping that I can get a few good peppers before I have to terminate this project and start over.
 
I won't post anymore pics since everyone knows what a Hot Pepper looks like  :party:
 
Good luck everyone. Happy Growing !
 
Jeff
 
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