Initial impressions: Shipping was instant, and I received it in perfect condition. The Solar Storm 400W packaging and boxing is the highest quality and professional. As others have noted, the unit itself is extremely rugged and very well put together. When I turned it on, I was relieved at how extremely quiet it is. I don't even notice it's on when the tent is zipped and I'm sitting 5 feet away. It's extraordinarily bright. I'm really pleased with how much blue light this puts out -- my previous LED lights have been much more focused on the red spectrum. Overall, I expect this to be enough light for podding 4-5 chili pepper plants, with some herbs in the corner, happily soaking up any leftover lumens.

I just started 7 (in case something goes wrong) facing heaven chili pepper seedlings of various varieties and I will be posting my feedback on the 400W solar storm as the weeks go by. I plan to eventually give a taste report too.

Setup:
4'x4' Mylar tent
Oscillating fan for building stem strength
Medium: Promix BX
Nutrients: General Hydroponics at half-strength until pods show (100% strength thereafter)
Containers: Seedling trays for now, but I will transfer them to five gallon buckets as they grow larger. I got the buckets for free but am considering buying air pots because they go on sale late summer.

Peppers need a lot of light and I've grown these outdoors before and had good harvests, so I think it will be a fair test of the light. I have a couple less-than-healthy tomato plants that someone gave me in there right now (they normally live outside, but it's been cloudy every day where I live). I haven't decided what I'm going to do with them as the pepper plants grow. I think there will be room for all of them. If not, I'll only keep the peppers, my herbs, and my one, healthy short cherry tomato plant. I have the tomatoes under a 135w UFO, but I'm going to keep the Solar Storm dedicated to the 4-5 chili plants. I really don't think the UFO will interfere.

One thing is this light is cool to touch when on, but that many photons really heats up my tent. But that's a good thing, because 1) I keep my room cold, and 2) in my experience, pepper plants do quite well at 80 degrees.

I will keep the solar storm on Veg mode 16-18 hours a day until the plants get about 10 inches tall. Then I will switch to bloom mode and cut back to 12 hours per day, but I'm expecting for them to keep shooting up, so I am considering LST'ing (I have never tried this) them early as they grow, because I've had these facing heaven chilis grow very tall, which I don't want to happen indoors.

This time the pics aren't so good but future pictures will be better when I install a CFL in the tent soon just for photographing.

I say these are almost the world's most expensive chilis, because there are other people on this board and others that have elaborate hydroponic set-ups for like, only 1 or 2 plants. I fully expect to have dozens of pods before the next 80 days are up. We'll see. Wish me luck and please give me feedback! Thanks.

Welcome to the forums!

Dont feel bad about having the most expensive peppers on the planet. I have the most expensive Clock Radio. I paid 600 outright for my iPhone 4s since I did not want a contract. Then I bought a 200 dollar iPhone Kplisch speaker dock. So what wakes me up in the morning is 800 dollars worth of hardware LOL. At least you get to eat your peppers.

Thanks for the welcome and encouragement. I'm posting a weekly update. The pepper seedling have grown a lot. I noticed some little holes in the largest one, which looked to me to be caused by a caterpillar. I checked the cup and branches and didn't find anything, but after about 6 or 7 times examining it, I finally found and removed the little guy, so hopefully no more nomnoms from here on out until I'm the one eating the peppers.

I was out of town this weekend, so I'm making up for my missed weekly update.

For most of my varieties, I've seen an incredible amount of growth for 9 days. One has leaves that are curling upwards, and one is stunted and purple (light too intense?). The light is about 30 inches from the seedlings. I'm pleased.

Note that the plants were thirsty during these photos - I should have waited until I gave them water, but couldn't wait. They perked up significantly once I did though.

The ones that are doing best have extremely tight internodes! (see first photo)

I decided to buy some air pots. For my next update, I will transfer some of them to airpots, and others to regular pots, as a comparison test.

My chilis have been doing fine, but look at this asshole I found on my tomato plant!

Weekly update is early as I plan to be out of town again. As promised, I transferred my plants into 17.5 liter superroots air pots. I got them for $11 each shipped and like them quite a lot, but I think watering them every day is going to be a pain in the ass though. The tent is getting quite cramped now. I think I need to replace my tower fan with clip-on fans to make more space. Any recommendations? Online would be best for me (no car).

By the way, the chili in the bottom right and top left of the row of chilis are the same variety at the same level of growth - the only difference is the pots, so we can see which one does better - the air pot or the paint bucket with holes in the bottom. They're about the same size too.

How's your new pet?

Haha, I didn't notice it until I was taking the plant out of the tent and had it in my hand, and the caterpillar was right up next to my face. I was so surprised I almost dropped the plant.