Honestly Dana, I have never understood why people spend a lot of money on fancy stuff like coconut noir, fancy miracle-gro soil seed-starting mix (which by the way I wouldn't use if they gave me a free bag), etc. I honestly have always started out with your basic Black Gold Potting Mix (the regular all-purpose stuff works fine) and simply added perlite (all that's for is aeration and drainage, as well as keeping the soil fluffy and loose), calcium carbonate (which you can make the pure form out of egg shells cheap and easy), liquid kelp extract (the best and also the cheapest as you can find it at Home Depot is the "Alaska brand"), Epsom salts and Vitamin B-1...that's it, and all those things are cheap. My Pepper seeds average germination time is only 4-8 days...that's it, hell I just planted 6 Carolina Reaper seeds in the same exact little germination station that you are using, just 4 days ago, and 2 of them have not only sprouted, they are already over an inch tall!
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Anthony
Taking the dome cover off of the germination station wouldn't be a good idea for 2 reasons: you lose your humidity (if it gets too humid, simply set something between the cover and the tray, so theres a slight gap to let a little bit of the humidity out), another huge thing that you lose is heat (which is the #1 reason people have trouble germinating pepper seeds), the soil in your germination station should be kept between 75-85 degrees
Oh...another thing, whatever you do, don't put seedlings directly into the ground from your seedling tray (big mistake), plant them in little 3-4" pots, and set yourself up a little "transfer station" as I call it. Transfer station: get another germination station, toss the super short 2" tall dome cover and replace it with a 12" tall dome cover for Clones, toss the 72 cell soil tray insert inside the main tray, stack all your little 3-4" pots inside put the cover on, put anywhere from 1-3 little 24 watt T-5 lights (with the little reflectors on them), and watch them grow!!
Hey Dana, ditch the watering in the bottom of the tray method for starting seeds (it can work great when working with clones or established plants)...it sucks when used in a germination tray...period. Soil doesn't "wick" water up well like you think it would, but roots sure do, but since seeds don't have roots, most of the time your soil cells will stay water logged, the seeds themselves/or the tiny little roots on the seedlings will rot, and when they do, the seedling will simply stop growing or die. Get a good quality spray bottle and mist the soil cells 2-3 times a day to keep them "moist", using this method you will never have a water logged cell, and as long as you're attentive to your misting, the moisture content in your cell soil should be damn near perfect!
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Anthony
