Frail, Tiny, Weak young plants advice?

One problem I seem to have run into is how tiny and delicate the plants are. Ever come to your space and find a new seedling gently laying down along the side of the cup! Now I do have a small fan gently blowing. However, I dare not aim it at the frail little seelings (about two weeks old). Instead my fan kinda just gently blows the air around the area making the seedlings sway every so slightly in the breeze. My main goal is to get these younglings to the point where I can have the fan blow and osilate more directed toward them. I imagine they will need a stronger stem for that. So what to do when you come in and see that seedling lying down!? I came up with something today. I gently proped it back up straight, and placed some more loose top soil around it. This gave the support for the plant to stand on its own firmy again. What do you all do when this happens? I am also worried about watering. I have been misting well daily. However some say just wait till the soil dries out. Well the next day it is dry to the touch and crusty on top. So I mist again. Wondering if I should slow to every other day and let the soil dry out more completely. I am using flourecents and they suck. I mean growth at 2 weeks looks like 2 days. I have to invest in some real lighting soon. I think a 400 watt hps will really jumpstart things, and I can loose all these floros. So far I have four 40 watt tubes at 160 watts total for side lighting (left and right). One 20 watt tube in the (center), and two 100 watt compact flourecents (center also) . So thats like 380 watts. I am blasted with light when I open the door, but think I need more, the only lights right on my 3 tiny babys are the 2 hundred watters. Think I should maybe double that?

ok, i'm just gonna throw in what i think to help you out cause i'm at work and done with what i've got to do for the day.... from my experience it seems like they're weak cause they aren't getting enough lighting... i've had fans directly on my seedlings and granted it's not the best idea, but i've NEVER had them weak/lay over like that... now a 400watt hps may be a little heavy for seedlings, but what i do for seedlings is get 3 or 4 light sockets (cheap at walmart, like 8 bucks for a kit with the lamp socket and cord)... get 3 or 4 socket splitters and 6-8 spiral flourescent "cool white" lights, 100 watt equivalent. on the bulb itself it will say "26watt" or something close to that, different brands are different on wattage. the light should light up almost blue, i get a piece of cardboard and cut 3 or 4 holes in it and push the socket part through and screw in the y splitter. use a little duct tape to wrap up loose cardboard edges (dont want fires!) and you can use tape to keep the sockets in the right position. My seedlings grow like crazy and these bulbs stay really cool with little air blowing on them. the problem with long tubes is they wear out fast and the light goes in a gazillion different directions from the tube. the cfl or spiral flouro does that, but it's concentrated in a ball a little more so you get a little better concentration without having a reflector. Your seedlings should be able to take a gentle breeze on them, for example, if you blow on it and it falls over, that's too weak. i usually go in and blow on mine to give them some CO2 anyways, and they seem to love it! goodluck with the grow and no nutes yet! idk why i threw that in there, but i just thought i would! goodluck with the grow!

Well man your doing something wrong, because I use fluoro tubes and CFL's for vegging and they work awesome.
If your plants are falling over then you dont have the light close enough and its growing too tall too fast looking for more light. If you have fluoro they should be within an inch of the top of your plant. When the plant gets a little bigger it should be touching the tubes. Yes touching them. Any part of your plant that is more than 10-12 inches from fluoro tubes has insufficient light. Any part of your plant that is within 3 inches is satisfied. Also you need the proper spectrum. When using any artificial light spectrum is very important to a MJ plant. It has a great affect on its growth. You need blue spectrum or full spectrum light to veg. This will keep your plant shorter and stronger. 4100K or higher within the proper distance will keep your plants short and stout.
Trust me you dont want to veg under a HPS. that would be LAME. Fluoro tubes are much better. Unless you want to veg really tall plants.
Quit with the misting, your going to rot the stem. Your in cups? Water till water comes out the bottom. Then pick up the cup. It will be wet and heavy, wait until you pick it up and its light and dry. Should be a couple days maybe 3. Then soak it again. and repeat.
Look at my first grow. Fluoro tubes man fluoro tubes!
Good luck.

Thanks friends. I was able to get allot of useful info from your post. I think that I will indeed at morte compact flourecents and a little closer. I am going to take your watering advice and slow that down. I understand now how the plants need to be more establised before switcing to mh or hps. This is good as it gives me a while to save my pennies. I am considering a 400 watt switchable mh/hps ballast. Cant wait to get to that point. I am just a newbie now and the goal is to get the babies to the point where they are established and ready for a better light system. I am defnitley not adding any nutes for at least 3 weeks. And when I do it will be very gradual. I am glad I only have random bagseed stuff initially. If I have sucess I will invest in some good purple.

Sounds like a good plan. Best of luck to ya!