Like the dome, the heating pad is for germination only. Once the seeds break the soil surface they must be uncovered and removed from the heat. You'll find lots more info over on the Growing from Seed forum here.

Dave

Agreed. The heating pad is unnecessary after germination. Cooler growing conditions will serve you better.

With fluorescent lights, closer is better- 2" or less, Brighter lights and hotter lights need to be further away.

Yeah, for lights its "as close as possible where you don't burn the plants or have to move the light every day". So for florescent bulbs that don't put off much if any heat, an inch away is great. If you've got incandescent that think they're heat lamps, 6+ inches is better.

How can you tell if your incandescent bulb is too close? Hold your hand up to it at the same distance as the plant. Is your hand getting hot? Then the bulb is too close.

Thanks all. I had left them on the heating pad so I will make the transition. I am using fluorescent but the bulb I got was a day bright light so I will go to do the manual hand check just to be safe.

At present I am giving them 12 hours on and 12 off. Is that the correct amount ?

Thanks also for the proper forum name. This site has so many forums to choose from. I did look for a seed forum but I was looking only in the 'S' section :-)

I recommend keeping the lights on 18 hours a day.

For what you have listed, you don't need additional heat. If you are growing peppers, they like warm roots in all phases of growth. Some tomatoes seem to like it too.

This year I moved my seed-starting to an unheated (and poorly insulated) basement, so I'm leaving the heating pad on the peppers for now. I remove the domes after germination, and I remove the heating pad from most things.

I use some seed-starting kits that I purchased a zillion years ago, and I certainly didn't pay much for them. Maybe $3 each? The domes are getting a little cracked, and a little yellowed, but I'm still limping along with them. I've lost some of the seed-starting cells to cracks and crushing, but other cell-packs wander in from the nursery each year, so I get by. Several years ago, I was able to replace just the domes for $1 each, but I've been having trouble finding the pieces separately in recent years.

leira, I believe Fedco has the pieces separately. See p. 128 here:
Organic Growers Supply 2012 catalog

This is the web page for the Organic Growers Supply info:
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs.htm

I believe the Organic Growers Supply catalog is included in their general spring mail-order catalog.

Thanks for the link, missingtheobvious. I probably would do well to spend a little more and get the "heavy duty" variety of things, but it's really amazing how long I've been going on the same sets of the cheap variety. I think it may have been more than 10 years ago when I last replaced the humidity domes, and I've been thinking in the last year or two that they might be due again. It's a little hard to argue with that!

I have a few dozen of the Heavy Duty ones - the trays are better than the domes, IMO - but mine are well over 10 years old and going strong. The domes get worn and abraded eventually, but when they're new, they are wonderfully clear and sturdy. Definitely an investment though, especially when the cheap trays are so easy to come by.