A cry for help :( (pics included)

My hypothetical friend desperately needs some help with his plants. He is experiencing some major problems with his Easy Bud (female seeds), and he just can't seem to figure out what the cause is. They are around 1,5 months old, and those weird brown spots started to appear after about 2 weeks. He suspected lock-up, and when he PH-tested his tap water, it turned out to be as high as 8,5. (after 24 hours around 7) so he immediately thought : awesome, I have discovered the problem so I simply need to adjust the PH, flush them with adjusted water and they'll be just fine. So now PH has been stabile and optimal (at 6,5) for more than a week, the soil has been flushed 2 times, but he doesn't see any significant change in their health & appearence.

One thing that has been puzzling him for weeks and weeks is that he has a couple of plants outside the closet, which are in the same soil as the sick ones and have been receiving the same water & treatment, but for some reason they are completely healthy! Their color is dark green, and they grow at a normal rate while the ones inside the closet (i.e. the ones in the pictures below) are light green, covered with brown and yellow spots and are growing EXTREMELY slowly.

he really needs all the help he can get

pics:
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3300/phto0014pv6.jpg
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/1440/phto0015hz3.jpg
http://img446.imageshack.us/img446/3060/phto0016nz7.jpg

Here's some additional info about his grow:

Light: 400 W HPS, fluoros during the their seedling-phase though!

Light-cycle: during the first 4 weeks of veg 24/0, during the last two weeks of veg 18/6. He switched to 12/12 yesterday.

The plants outside the closet simply didnt fit into the closet (too many females) so the only light they received was the secondary light from the closets HPS , because he keeps it open all the time.

Age: 1,5 months

Humidity: high, He's using the Cool Mist humidifier, but I dont know the exact levels.

Soil: 50 % light peat moss
50% dark peat moss
PH:5,5-6,5
Additives: NPK: 11-5-18 (this sounds like a lot, considering the fact that he used this soil in veg....what do you think?)
I know he probably made a mistake by not mixing perlite or vermiculite into the soil.

Nutes: He's fed them modest amounts of Canna Vega 2 times during their lifetime, NPK: 3+1+4

+ magnesium (Epsom salt) two times. (small amounts)

I hope this info gives a better overview.

doesn't anyone recognize the damages in the pics? :(

I sure hope someone has had this exact problem ansd knows a way to solve it

I thought ph in soil was supposed to be higher--7 being ideal. Also I found with my grow that after awhile the soil just ran out of nutrients and I had to feed more of them after about 6-7 weeks. I did seem to have the same problem in my hydro grow (low ph) because I was spraying them daily with seltzer water with a very low ph (3.8). They did get nute lockout, turn yellow, edges curled etc like yours but even after I fixed the problem the affected leaves didn't return to normal. However, the new growth looked fine. AND (as if I haven't talked enough) I believe you want a higher phos. content for blooming.

My plants are doing the same thing and im trying to figure it out to so hopefully someone can help us out here.

a modest amount of nutes means nothing we need to exactly how much you gave them how far apart are these feedings?

how often do you water them underwatering them is better than too much.

from what it looks you locked out nitrogen with the high PH but since then you havent added anything thus making them N deficient even more so do this.

go get some 12-0-0 what yoy have is too high of K going on there too you need just N, you may also have hard water this will affect things too so you need to test that area too.