I placed them into the soil, I gently watered it a little bit enough to be wet yet not too wet. How long will it take them to come out to the surface? There's a 600W HPS light on top of them right now.
should be a couple days then.. future advice.. just put the seed in the dirt like 1/4" down and don't mess with germinating them outside of the soil. this way you don't disturb the little root hairs. you said the leaf is already popping out of the shell? how long is the root?