rinse off the perlite anyways... that stuff has a lot of really small pebbles in it and its not good for the root system i guess... i didn't take the time to do it and i wish i had - too late now though
I'm also a newb and after 2 weeks things are going good, im using cfl's also and i just keep them about 4-5 inches above them and they're not stretching AT ALL... they're 4-5 inches tall and have 4 nodes already... i dont know if thats good, bad or average but its not stretching... Dont use ANY...