Indoor Gardening and Houseplants: Citrus grown indoors, 1 by Spott

Spott wrote:
Hi all,
Once in a while over the past 20 years or so I've tried my hand at growing citrus as houseplants from seed. I'm not interested in fruiting as much as I am in a nice foliage houseplant. I like the look of citrus as houseplants whenever I see them somewhere.
Problem is, I've never had much luck in the long run.
A number of different symptoms have occurred, not all on the same plant. They get spindly looking or the leaves fall off, or they seem to burn as soon as I leave them in direct sun in a south facing window.
I keep reading that citrus need something like 12 hours of direct sun a day to do well, but is that inside or outside? I've been told that some plants that need full sun outside may only tolerate very bright indirect light when inside. Any truth to that?
Also, I've been trying different watering methods..... keeping the soil slightly moist at all times versus waiting until it dries up a bit doesn't seem to make much difference..... they grow VERY slowly and don't look optimal.
Anyway, I tried again about 8 months ago and have three little plants that I keep in an east facing window.
A grapefruit, a mandarin and a kumquat plant.
Aren't they ridiculously small for 8 month old plants?
Here's the grapefruit..... the mandarin can be seen in the background.