You got some BAD info from your buddies or totally misunderstood the concept of adding lime to your soil. Lime is called a “buffer” agent but it doesn’t make soil a particular pH or turn water to the perfect pH when it’s added to the soil. What it does is add alkalinity to soil - raising the number of your pH reading. The more lime you add, the higher number you get for you soil pH. So, let’s say (hypothetically) a soil registered in at 5.5pH and you wanted to build your soil to have a pH of 6.5. You would add a particular amount of lime to the original soil and it would increase your soil pH to 6.5 IF, AND ONLY IF, you added the correct amount! There are ways to calculate the proper amount but that’s for another discussion.
Now, when you add water to that amended soil, the lime in the soil will NOT turn water that has a pH of (hypothetically) 5.0 into 6.5 water. It WILL help to ‘buffer’ the water SOME, so that the roots will not experience water of 5.0, but rather something probably in the order of maybe 5.5-5.7 in this particular hypothetical example. It imperative that you understand this concept! It’s not magic. Lime simply raises pH at a calculable rate. Nothing more. Lime should be added to soil that NEEDS it and not added just cuz some guy said so. Usually, a soil test is your best bet; but that’s a soil building topic - a HUGE and deep topic for another day. Usually, when you buy a well known and highly regarded soil like BioBizz, you don’t need to be adding stuff to it just to start growing. This is particularly true when you are going to be feeding bottled nutrients! In your case, you’d have been better off leaving the lime off (which you now know) and simply pH’ing your water and your feeds to ~6.3 - 6.5. Even with the lime in there, I’d just stick with pH’ing to 6.3 and continuing on. Lesson learned for next time. BioBizz soil is carefully crafted and balanced so that, IF you follow (to the letter) a proper feeding schedule from a good nutrient company like AN and pH your feeding/water to a proper pH, you shouldn’t have any issues and get a good crop. You took a well balanced soil and UNbalanced it!
On flushing: Next time you flush soil, use 2-3 times the volume of your pot worth of water. PH all the water to 6.5 and run it through as fast as you can. Don’t flush longer than about 30-40 minutes. Before you finish your flush...the LAST bit of liquid should be a 1/4 to 1/3 strength feeding! This provides the nutrients for the plant during the dry-out period. Some of the stunting you are having is, no doubt, due to the stress of the flush on such young plants. That and the excess water needed to flush.
You’re getting some good advice here. I’d ditch your friends that have been giving you bad advice on growing. Especially the guy who bad-mouthed autos. That guy doesn’t have a clue! Might be a great guy but obviously doesn’t have the knowledge to guide your growing adventure down a good path.
HTH
