yellowing leaves, browning tips, tops yellowing.. is this root bound need some advice

so I have three plants two of them are getting pretty bad.
out of the three plants I have one of them is a sativa and the other two are indica dom.
the sativa (plant 1) has a few yellowing bottom leaves but most of the tops are yellowing or turning limey colored.

the first indica with two main tops is also yellowing more severely and the tips of her leaves are starting to turn brown and brittle.
the other indica (plant 3) has been transplanted into a bigger container than the others and isn't experiencing the same symptoms but has leaves that are starting curl upward only on the serrated edges.

these plants were definitely root bound, and are in half gallon container,
is this a sign of root bound or could it be nute lock up? bc iv recently seen little whitish deposit atop my soil.
please someone help me

my friend had one looked like that and it was root bound 1/2 pot is not that big go up to a 3gal and see what happens. 1/2 gallon aint gonna make it thru flowering anyways.

What kind of water do you use? well water is mineral heavy and can leave deposits. As for condition they look underwatered with a nitrogen deficiency. Which could be because they are in a tiny pot. Time to transplant and fert maybe.

Well last night I transplanted to a pot 2x the size. I don't believe them to be under watered bc I water them every day in the morning
And have self watering pots with a water res. I fed them regularly but have recently stopped after seeing the damage to them. I use tap water that I let sit for a day. The water we have is very hard. I figured it could be salt deposit buildup and nute lockup. I've noticed christal like salt deposit on my soil but don't know how to fix these problems. Would store bought water help? Could this be due to being to close to the lights? Bc I use cfl and my plants are quite close to the light, about 1-2 inches away. I hope they make a recovery =(

Im new, but I think there is a nitrogen prob.

def a nitrogen probz flush it and give it some high N food

The top left 2 pictures look like a sulfur deficiency to me, but that may be caused by your hard water problem, especially if you're noticing strange build up on your top soil. You could either buy one gallon cartons of steam distilled water from your local grocery store or invest in a microfiltration system. This thread may help you understand hard water problems and solutions and help you identify if it's the cause of the problem, or if they're deficient in some other way. https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/294579-water-most-essential-compound.html

thanks for the advice and I revived one of my 3 babys... the other 2 were a loss though.
what I did was flushed just a little then I treated my tap with a ph decreser got a ph tester
then just fed them with the treated water for a few weeks. now at least one can be budded
although the growth has been stunted beyond repair. =( these results were after a complete
crop went straight brown.