thank you all for your help...all the new growth on the plants is looking very healthy. i've run into a couple more issues though....
first off is the pesky species known to us as goddamgnat motherfuckerus (saw that in a high times and it made me chuckle). anyways, i used some non-toxic spray (advertised to kill fungus gnats among others) and hung some sticky fly traps to control the problem. I also put some of the spray in some water (very diluted) to treat the soil for possible larvae. ideally I would have used something with BTI in it but, because all the stores around me are seasonal, it wasn't available.
next...the reason i started this forum was because some mold began growing on top of some compost I was using. Well, I removed the top layer of mold, the soil has dried out, and no more mold has grown since. however, it appears that a tiny bit of mold may be growing in the containers of my babies. here is a couple pictures of one sample. i chose this plant because it is far behind in growth from the others so i was going to toss it anyways. the mold is similar on others...let me know if you think it is cause for concern or possibly just nutrients (should be noted that i used a sulfur mix to correct pH about two weeks ago)