seedlings growing too high?

Hi all

I'm very new to this and have not much of an idea when it comes to growing indoors. I have a problem, germinating my seeds was not a problem. But now the seedlings seem to be growing at a rapid pace but not getting any thicker, a few have just flopped over and died almost as if it had been bent in half. They are about 3-4 inches in height. I'm currently just using 4 cool white fluorescent tubes for light. Could it be a light issue? I don't have the highest budget and would like to keep the lighting situation a bit on the cheap side ... Besides that could there be any other reasons as to why they are growing too high then flopping over?

One picture is worth a thousand words

No, it is definitely a light issue. The plants are stretching because they are desperate for light. You can try to prop them up and all, but unless they get more light they are just going to stretch more and share the same fate as the fallen. If you expect any sort of decent growth or yield you are going to have to get more light anyways.

What kind of fluorescent tubes are you using? How far away from the plants are the bulbs? You can put fluorescent bulbs just a couple inches away from the plants.

Light is an extremely important factor for indoor growing, it is strongly correlated to proper growth and yield. You could go out and buy some high-wattage CFLs (the big 42 watt kind), or a lower wattage HID system, which I would definitely recommend anyways come flowering if you want to take it seriously. A 250 watt HID lamp will give you more lumens per watt than fluorescent bulbs anyways.

if ther tsretchin lower the light and just repot with the stems buried

Yea, like Nullis pointed out, it's a light issue. Your lights are either too far away from the seedlings, or there isn't enough light, or both.

How many plants are you growing?

Stake those suckers up! Honest, I have had 9-inch toothpicks and grew them out easily.

First you need some sort of fan action with new seedlings. The constant air movement
will tell the plant to grow a sturdy stem for support. But you still need to stake them up
as soon as they hit an inch or 2. I use skinny sticks with a pipecleaner wrapped around
the top of the stick. Stick the stick right alongside the plant stem and push it deep. Twist
the pipecleaner so that it surrounds the main stem, thus preventing the deadly fallover.
Note that toothpick seedlings are all about the light. The most common cause of falling over
is when the seedling is placed away from the light and is forced to bend towards the light.
So keep 'em directly under the light, crank up a fan and learn how to make little stakes.
Finally, place them and leave them. Moving toothpick seedlings is asking for trouble so don't
do it.

Good luck, BigSteve.

It's the distance of the light most likely. Floro tubes need to be less than 1 inch away from seedlings to stop them from stretching IME. With T8's, and T12's especially, the plant can actually touch the bulb and it will do no harm, depending what the ambient temps and air flow around the light are I suppose. I've had seedlings faceplant and "hug" T8 32w bulbs with no ill effects. Not sure about T5's though, never ran any. It could also be that your bulbs are old and not pumping out the lumens they used to. If it looks like you can see "waves" of light going back and forth along the tube, you need to replace them. What wattage are these bulbs?

And like bigsteve said, a small fan blowing on the seedlings, gently "shaking" them a little, will also help beef their stem up, and cool the bulb so you can get the seedling right up on it.