T5 Light Distance From Seedlings Dome Or No Dome

[stomatasf]

Sorry I hate to post questions that I'm sure are on this forum somewhere but I've hit the search button and can't seem to find how many inches from my seedlings my t5's should be above them?

I have two trays of 50 rooters.
Started first tray on Friday the 16th and 2nd Tray on Sunday the 18th.
Most seeds have popped in 1st tray with some not sprouting/germinating.
They have germinated at different rates. I've used domes, first I had the domes closed and I've read a couple of different things... yes use dome, no don't use dome and do use dome with rooters but leave slots at top open...
On 1st tray I didn't provide lights as I was waiting for all or most seeds to germinate... so I learned quickly that i screwed up because the seedlings that popped first became leggy..
Currently I have them all under T5 lights but not sure how far above seedlings I should place lights.. and secondly should I take domes off and have a small fan running to strengthen the seedlings stems.. 3rdly Once it's time to transplant should I bury the rooters deeper into 4" pot so that there's less stem!

 

[sixstring]

i keep about 6 inches between the t5 lamp and the seedling.once they get a few sets of leaves i move them much closer like within 3 or 4 inches,sometimes closer.by the time they are 8 inches tall with 4to 5 nodes they are pretty much touching the lights or less than an inch.seen lots of people keep 12 to 16 inches between the plants with fine results.i just like my plants to have as little stretch as possible when they are young.

 

[stomatasf]

i keep about 6 inches between the t5 lamp and the seedling.once they get a few sets of leaves i move them much closer like within 3 or 4 inches,sometimes closer.by the time they are 8 inches tall with 4to 5 nodes they are pretty much touching the lights or less than an inch.seen lots of people keep 12 to 16 inches between the plants with fine results.i just like my plants to have as little stretch as possible when they are young.

Thank you six string!

 

[REDiJEDi160]

Yea it looks like yours are stretching for that light quite a bit

 

[XxTheWolfxX]

With a t5, 3-5 inches is optimal. You can even be within 2 inches and be okay if you have a fan set on low. Any higher and your plants growth will slow. T5s are linear and not as powerful as HID or LED.

 

[MIGrampaUSA]

With a t5, 3-5 inches is optimal. You can even be within 2 inches and be okay if you have a fan set on low. Any higher and your plants growth will slow. T5s are linear and not as powerful as HID or LED.

You also want to remove the humidity dome once they begin sprouting. The humidity dome is used to retain moisture during germination. Once the sprout is above ground, a seedling dome will cause seedlings to stretch. It's what looks like what happened by looking at the pictures.

The distance stated above is pretty good advice. More blue in the spectrum will also help keep them from stretching. I use cold white 6500k color temp 4 ft LED shop lights to help keep them stout and mix it with my 4 ft full spectrum LED lights for my veg light system. It does a lot better job than my quantum boards or my bar lights for early veg.