WELL....you are gearing up aren't you? Good for you to get serious about it. Growing isn't hard if you follow the "rules" and be consistent. I grow hydro so soil is not sometihing I know much about but I can tell you that if that is the recommended height for your type of light they still are getting burned by the heat of your lighting....it is simply too close.

I cannot tell you if you need nutes for soil growing or not.....I suppose it depends on your type of soil but generally people add things or use "certain" types of soil to meet their needs. Some of the soil growers here can help you with that I'm sure. Even if you do need to use nutes you don't need to be a chemist....many of them are off the shelf ready to use blah blah so you just need to know how much how often.

I do not think cfl lighting is very good for flowering plants (you aren't at that point yet are you?). There is a section in the forum indoor growing subtitled indoor lighting that may be able to give you some answers. (I pretty much use what lighting my hydro guy tells me and have learned to keep my mouth shut because even if I did ask him why I wouldn't understand it anyway)

Dont change your lighting around at all! Your plants are thinking that the sun is controlling the lighting not you so you are sending them into a tailspin when you change things around like that.

Good luck to you and don't give up......it's a learn as you go thing and once you get dialed in you will love it. :thumbsup: