First time grower, sickness?

Ok, so this is my first time, and im running a barebones setup for a test spin.

Lighting:
1) 100w led @ 6500k with heatsink and fan (8k lumens)
2) Two 18w 100w equivilant led @ 3000k (ea 1.6k lumens)

Soil based grow:

Taken from a organics garden, removed majority of old roots from other types of plants an rocks, but still kept some rocks. I amended the soil surface with some sort of fertilizer, just a couple teaspons. I also keep an extra pot in the same location just for reference soil moisture. 5 plants each. Its roughtly a week into veg.

Temp:

Between 70F and 80F usually.

Additional Notes:

I also keep an extra pot in the same location just for reference soil moisture. 5 plants each. Its roughtly a week into veg. I havent really been able to keep a constant light schedule. Roughly 16 on 8 off.

Issues:

This morning when i turned on the lights, i noticed some white spots on a couple leaves, on two out of five plants. Throughout the day i checked up on them and noticed the same leaves were turning white a bit, almost a bleached look. Now the white spots have started turning brown and the fresh foliage on top seems to be curling up. The stems seem to be weak and flimsy and was thinking about tieing them up, but i dont think that would cause this. Then i figured maybe it was the soil with any nutes that were in it, maybe it was too strong or the pH (which i do not have a tester yet) so i cant check it. Anyways just wondering what others thought.

looks like PH and N def, A ph testing kit at like ace hardware isnt that much, maybe 15$

not gonna grow much without dialing in the PH

It looks like you have a N deficiency and calcium deficiency per weak flimsy leaf curling ect. Get a PH as said above and don't go all crazy and overwater. I'm sure some pros on here will chime in if I led you astray . Good luck bud

This is the problem wit using old and reused soils, your always better off starting with fresh new compost from your local Hydoponics Shop.
It does seem to be a deficiency caused by lock out due to incorrect PH. Soil PH wants to be between 6 an 7 with 6.5-6.7 being optimum. Take a sample of soil an use a soil ph testing kit to find the alkaline acidity content. Once you know the results, start to amend the soil the what you need to either bring it up or down. I think once you sort the soil out they'll begin to recover, but they certainly won't until the problem is eradicated.
Peace n light

what jedi said mate, your medium was never gonna be good for this job ... even a super cheap bag of soil would be better than what you have...

some sort of fertlilizer don't help us any??? yeehaw..what kind ,what are the npk levels ,any macros,micros.need more info for more than guessing..no lime added???..half assed preparation/half assed results...do your homework next time ..lots of soil info here

funny story time

i'd say, carefully clean as much of the soil off the roots as you can, get more soil, don't put the fucking fertilizer on top!!

#1 early grower mistake.. too much nutes. you want TINY ASS amounts of nutes if any. but all early growers think they're gonna tweak it and come out winners. ...no. you want like a few crumbs, not a few teaspoons..


when i was a kid.. one of my first grow attempts (the ones that never got past a week or so because i was doing kid shit) i had the seedling in the pot and i got ahold of some miracle gro fertilizer..

being totally retarded, i put a little blue pyramid of MG on the soil about an inch from the plant.. figured it would absorb into the soil gradually.....

aheheheheh..

well as an update, those two died and the others are still going strong. Ill take what you guys said to heart to keep the others going. Thanks for the input. Also the two that died also seem like they dried up. So i pulled the dead plants out and checked the soil and it was moist... i am going out tomorrow to get a soil pH test. Like i said, this was only a trial learn and didnt expect great results if any because i know im still missing alot of things and learning. Also thanks for the diagram Stoned-Trout, ill make sure to keep it in my records with all my other notes. ^_^b

Several things going on here. You say you've got an extra pot to monitor soil moisture, if you mean you have a pot with just soil and no plant that won't tell you much about your plants moisture. There is nothing "drinking" the water in the empty pot, it will dissipate water through evaporation, only.

I'm guessing you don't really know what the fertilizer is so you probably don't know what the directions say. Hell, it could say 1/2 teaspoon for a full grown plant and you used 2 teaspoons! If you don't know what it is and how much to use you're better off not using any for now. As small as those plants were I don't think they needed any.

You say the light schedule is not constant. You need to get a cheap timer or get better at maintaining the schedule as you'll have all sorts of issues come flowering otherwise.

Start reading as many threads as you can here about growing in soil, especially the stickies. You'll soon figure it out ifin you want to.............

I agree with Midnight Tokar, those probably didn't need fertilizer at that point, they are probably over fertililized considering how young they are. try starting seeds in peat moss or seed starter mix.

The white spots make me believe ph issue.
Lots of good advice in the thread.
Oh dont reuse meduim. You can reuse coco but I dont.

That's the problem with reusing soil, it could have too much in it to start or not enough and most people don't have the ability to accurately determine exact nutrient levels in their soil. With new soil In the size pots people often use for new plants, .5 to 1 gallon the typical plant doesn't start to need added nutrients until about 3 weeks to a month into vegging.