Bad soil makes for a difficult grow. This is the same soil as my last grow which had lots of problems too. I've since switched to RDWC mostly because of this. My advice: Get your soil from somewhere local that gets a good amount of business so you don't get old soil.
@greeneric, It's from AC Infinity. You can get it with or without the lights and I had no problems with it at all. It also has a extension piece in case you want to do clones in there. Worked perfectly with the rapid rooters. I've only planted 7 seeds, but I'm 7 for 7 with germination and all of them were simply planted in the rapid rooters with water.