as i already stated twice the reason for the stretch was a bad bulb producing insufficient light, i am not new to this and have grown many times before. i am aware of the stretch that happens during flowering and i was prepared for it but because of the bad bulb they stretched even more. i have done 5 foot plants before and this was my goal. had it not been for the bulb everything would be right on track. I have a day temp of 81 and a night temp of 69 under a 600 watt hps to answer those of you who asked, but i have figured out the stretch problem already all i wanted to know is if they should be trimmed down considering the containers cant support plants of this size and the top half of the plants are suffering with really slow growth while the bottom of the plants are fattening up nicely, the opposite of what should be happening.