Greetings! This is my first grow. I have five feminized seeds that I germinated last week and planted in small pots. I left them by the window over the weekend and went out of town after watering each pot a bit. When I returned, the seedlings became quite tall and slouched over. I figured they stretched due to a lack of light, straightened them up a bit with toothpicks, and placed them under my 400W HPS bulb, with the bulb about 10" from the top. However, a few hours later the soil had dried quite a bit and the seedlings seemed to have taken some damage and become really thin. Here's a pic of one of the seedlings. Can it be overwatering? If it's a lack of light, how come the light caused this kind of stress to the seedlings? Should I raise the height of the light? I'm a total noob at this, and I really wouldn't want to mess it up any more by trying to self-diagnose and applying the wrong remedy and killing the plants.
Your soil is too wet. Put the bulb closer and let the soil dry out before you do anything more. Let it try to heal itself during these days.
Thanks Freshyweed. I watered the soil a bit just before I took the pic. Before that it was dry - is overwatering causing its symptoms? Is it better if the soil is too dry rather than too wet then? Just to know which side I should err on.
Seedlings are like babies dude. You can kill it by over watering and under watering. The soil is supposed to be moist not wet. And try to water it when you feel the soil is almost dry. Check this by putting your finger some inches into your bucket.