Noob needs help...

Hey everyone....need a little help cariing for my buddies;

I have 9 plants approx. 5 weeks in the veg cycle. They are in a walk in closet under 6 cfl (23 watts) and 2 cfl (65 watts) and cover about 3sq. ft. Lights are approx 2-3" away from tops of plants. As of right now, they are in 1 gal. pots and get watered every 4-5 days (when they show signs of need watering). I have FF (6-4-4) nutes, that I have only used 2x. Am using some inexpensive (re:cheap) potting soil-bought at local home improvement store- with a 3:1 ratio of perlite added... I use rain water (checked the ph-it is right around 7)
These were started as bagseed. The temp and humidity have been between 66-73 degrees and humidity between 40-50%.

My problem: most of the plants leafs are very pale green (still has green veins). the main stems have purple throughout and the stems of the fan leaves are also purple. They do seem to be growing slowly ( most are about a foot tall now, +/- 2". the leaves also seem to be curled down and on some of the plants the new growth at the tops-the leaves seem to be twisting and turning purple with the leaf tips looking almost burnt. The plants are very stocky with little internodal space...What else is perplexing is that on the 2 worse plants the branches off of the main stems (although little) seem to be in much better shape (darker green in color).
Also, some of the plants have what appear to be rust colored spots on some of the fan leaves (this doesn't seem to be as much of an issue lately).

Looking at all the info, I'm not sure if it is a deficiency or if I am doing something wrong.

Any suggestions and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I'll try to get more pics in.

Thanks,
Hazy

MY GUESSES =

1. Cold? whats the temps
2) possible underwatering?- what is your light schedule

Ok , pics would help allot , but It sounds like it could be the first stages of nutrient lock out.....the purple stems are usually caused from nitrogen deficiency, also light green or yellowing leaves [ in this stage] ...I would check the ph of your runoff water...It's probably going to be over 7....which is the max. ph for soil ...I' needs to be around 6.5/6.8......check runoff water and let me know what the ph is......

that's looking like a classic Mg deficiency. sounds like you have everything in check, so...do some more research on mg deficiency, could be just that strain needs more of it or lockout from not flushing leading to a build up of salts, inhibiting the uptake.
if u have never flushed-add some fine dolomite lime to your soil and flush and than feed normally. get some epsom salts and foliar feed 1 time. purple could be from strain, but is usually quite normal on the stems and petioles. could be begining of P deficiency which is normal in lockout with MG and usually K
it seems pretty well progressed-all IMO

light schedule is 24/7...i will check ph of the runoff water later today and post more pics..thanks...
hazy

keep us updated Bro.....

update...
Thanks everyone for the replies....

Checked ph of nute and water mix=6.5
rechecked rain water ph=7

runoff after watering=7.5 ...maybe a little higher...
seems like the soil may not be acidic enough....how would I ph down my soil? would lowering the ph of my water help this?

Another thing I did was to add about 1/2 teaspoon of epsom salts to my water to help w/ any Mg deficiencies.

My plant soil was very dry, so I will definitely have to increase the watering schedule.

Checked the little buggers a little while ago and had to raise everyone of my lights a good 1" or 2". So the watering had definitely helped....leaves don't look as bad as a few days ago, still pale green but otherwise looking healthy....It is the large fan leaves that are the worse. Branching seems to be mucher greener than rest of plant....

still, a couple of plants have leaves that look like a talon and are purple on the tips, but are growing.

Thanks KingB, autotek and smokeybandit...

Here are a couple more pics from a few days ago

Thanks,
Hazy

u r gonna have to feed them more-only 2 nute feeds will do this. you really should be foliar feeding with the epsom salts as again, this is getting pretty severe. also feed with as soon as you can. the lime will not allow you ph to raise above 7. they look pretty bad especially if u r lookng to flower soon.

You have nute lockout from the 7.5 ph.....lower the ph until you get a runoff of 6.5/6.8 .....adding nutrients will not fix the problem untill you get the ph down......plants cannot absorb nutrients at a ph this high......don't spray epsom salts on the leaves....If you have good drainage you probably need to water every 3/4 days.....the dammaged leaves won't get better but you will see improvement in the new growth....hope this helps Bro...

gonna have to disagree with you here Autotek. You make mention of lockout of Nitrogen by high Ph. I doubt highly this is the case. Nutes can get locked out but very rarely do within 1-2 % points of the ph. Escpecially N-very rare to have lockout of N. Every plant grown in the wild that flowers and flourishes has a ph under 7?
anyways, here is excerpt from ICMAG:
Soil levels
Nitrogen gets locked out of soil growing at ph levels of 4.0- 5.5.
Nitrogen is absorbed best in soil at a ph level of 6.0-8.0.
-seems like he is in range-
for whatever reason his plant has an Mg deficiency or Zinc, depending on the photos.
Now he may have locked out Mg.

Ok I'll agree with a possible mg def ,probably several deficiencies, because of a ph of "7.5 or a little higher" any thing out of the 6-7 range "can" but not always cause a deficiency...I know different strains react differently to nute and ph levels , I've had 2 out of 8 plants in the same hydro set up show signs of a def while the other 6 never had problems ..this has also happened with nute burns ...altho they were probably from weaker genetics....the only reason I was weeding out {no pun intended] a Mg def. Was he hasn't had any brown spotting except the first couple sets of leaves, he said that seemed to have stopped.....and the yellowing has progressed all the way up to the new growth....Unless it's a very mild case of Mg def ???? What do you think????

u are absolutely correct with your ph analysis with hydro. shit can get locked out a helluva lot easier than soil. those brown spots will work there way up as well. first leaves yellow intervienally than those areas die-usually last before the whole leaves turn necrotic. this is a pretty bad case and just a bit unusual for such a young age.
I havent been able to figure out why such a problem except he just havent been feeding them enough. I found this:
Problems with Magnesium being locked out by PH troubles

Light Acid Soils, soils with excessive potassium, calcium and or phosphorus


Soil

Magnesium gets locked out of soil growing at ph levels of 2.0-6.4
Magnesium is absorbed best in soil at a ph level of 6.5-9.1 . (Wouldn’t recommend having a ph of over 7.0 in soil) anything out of the ranges listed will contribute to a Magnesium deficiency.

Good info Bro.....

Ok.. smokey good point about not feeding enough.....hazy420 , you never stated what % of nutrients you were mixing, 1/4...1/2...full ??????

autotek- Last time I watered with nutes (2 days ago) I used the FF grow big (6-4-4) at full strength (for regular feeding---1 tsp. per gallon)...Just took a little quality time with them and they look better than yesterday which was way better than the day before...the yellowing has not progressed and they are really growing (had to move lights up a little bit again today!)....
My question is how to lower the ph of the soil?
I am going to let these go a another week or two and begin my first cloning op. and see who the girls are and keep the best for a mother. After I learn much more and get things down, would like to get a good commercial strain.

Trying hard to gain some knowledge.
Thank you all!!!!!
Hazy

You can ph down you're water until the runoff water is at the desired ph level.....ph your water to 6.8 after adding nutes , water, then ph the runoff and see what it reads....keep us posted.....

add some fine dolomite lime to the top layer of the soil-will prevent the ph from rising above 7.