Help, my plants stopped growing!

I'm doing a DWC grow with Auto #1 from autoseeds. It's my first grow, and I'm growing 3 plants in 5-gallon buckets. I started 3 seeds in rockwool cubes and put them in a DIY humidity dome under a single 14w CFL. The were growing pretty well, but then I got impatient and put the seedlings in their 5 gallon pots. I still don't have the exhaust fan to keep my 600w cool (it gets here today), so I hung my single 14w CFL in my grow tent and tried to get it to shine light on all 3 seedlings in their big 5-gallon buckets. It obviously wasn't enough light, and the leaves started to get dark in the middle and the plants stopped growing. I put them back in my humidity dome 3 days ago (after 1.5 days in the pots) and they still haven't grown at all, but their leaves got bright again after just a few hours. Will this have a big impact on my yield or total grow time? When should I put them under the HPS light?

Are you growing 12/12? If no, get a 600w MH. No reason to veg under a HPS if you aren't doing 12/12 from seed.

No 12/12, it's an autoflowering strain so I'm going to keep it at 20/4. I'll probably get a MH bulb after I have a couple grows under my belt and switch to non-autoflowering strains.

hate to give you bad news but if you dont get them back under proper light imediatly then yes it is going to hurt your yield big time. autos dont get extra time in veg to recover from stress like transplanting or topping, or in this case lack of light, they will start flowering when they feel like it. that said, if you get them proper light asap and if there still under 2 weeks old you should still be able to grow something decent from them.

They've been just a few inches under a 14w CFL for a couple days, but my inline fan just got here so I'm going to get it set up and turn on my HPS light right now. They're only 6, 7, and 8 days old, so hopefully this doesn't hurt my yields too much.

yeah if its that early on there shouldnt be to much difference

they may just be developing root systems sooo as long as you got new nice looking leaves forming they probably are fine get them back to their light.

I just finished setting everything up and now they're all under the 600w HPS at 50% power. It's about 2.5-3 feet from the plants, is that good or should I move it closer? The roots have been growing, but I'm still nervous about not seeing any new leaf growth. I guess I'll just need to watch them and maybe learn to be a little more patient.

it takes some plants 2 weeks or so to start taking off sometimes