Too much light, too soon?

Feel like such a newbe dumbass. This isn't my first grow have done a number of grows in my hydro tank, but this is a new grow with a new light. Just bought a 600w digital ballast. I germinated some White Widow seeds. Had a little trouble getting them germed together. Staggered by about a week so i put them first under a 3- 42w=150w a piece setup. Did this for several day then decided to fire up the new ballast. It is 2 feet from the little ones and a couple of days later there doing nothing. One looked healthy before looks to be dieing now.Just afraid it was to soon to put them under the big light. They were under the CFL for a few days but my first one stretched so bad I thought I needed the extra light. Now Iam worried it was a mistake. How long do you keep seedling under your cfl's before going to the big guns??? Thanks for any help.

Thanks everyone your always there for me....WTF

Bulb type?

my friend is growing now and he says he used a 400w Mh for the veg from the very beginning, dont know how far away the light was from the plant however, might be a idea just to move the light further away?

the more light the better..its not the light to worry about but the seedling drying up, or being damaged by the heat... the morelight the better, trying moving the lite further away at least if its far away u can see the seedling trying to stretch that way u'l be able to adjust it..put a small cup o water in the corner of your grow space.. and that will give u a nice bit of moist humidity gr8 for the plants.

move light up..keep temps and RH in check... problem solved

Had one die last night and 1 more is stretched from the cfl's. Iam going to try the cup of water idea and maybe look at wally world for a very small humidifier so they can stay moist. The light is a air cooled hood with fresh cool air flowing through it and it is sunmaster 600w. Because it is air cooled and with glass thought I could get closer. I have it exactly 24 inches from plants and they definitely are not stretching for it. Thanks for the replies I really appreciate it.

i had a similar problem and mine were wilted over to the point where some of them were just laying down completely sideways. I cut a straw down to small enough pieces so i could support the stems that way, then I watered them good and turned my light off for the night by readjusting my timer (it had been running 18 - 6) so it got about 9 or 10 hours of dark before the light came back on. the next morning when i checked on them they were standing up again and seemed to be doing ok. I think it was heat stress and soil was drying too fast. the other posts are right, just need to keep temps down, soil moist, and a bit of humidity. I have 2 bowls filled with water in my grow closet to add humidity.