125dF seems pretty hot. Is that the heat mat indicator?

My solution is to keep them cool, bright, and on the dry side during winter (ie encouraging dormancy type reactions). Then outside for as much time as I can allow when temps are moderate or high.

it's a kitchen cooking thermometer, 125 is when it alarms. the soil temp is the number above that, 79f.

Still pretty warm imo.

I agree with dbarron, winter, assuming you're in the northern hemisphere, is a 'rest period' for most plants, even evergreens.

eta: yes Missouri is in the NH. :-)

What kind of light bulb are you using? It looks like the leaves are getting burned by the light.

I have two Phillip's going, had a red and blue LED grow light too. When I was reading the Phillip's boxes they don't actually say full spectrum or anything really... so I switched the red and blue LED for a full spectrum bulb just the other day.

The leaves arent getting physically burned by the heat from the lights. Using and infrared thermometer they get up to about 78 or 79. The lights are on a timer for 14 hrs a day, there isn't much sunlight in the room unfortunately.

Could be dry air.

Citrus are native to parts of the world with humid summers. It is not goinng to be happy inside a house. Yours is doing about as well as it can.

We've got a furnace and no humidifier. I keep some water in the dish and mist it to try and help, the plant is raised so it doesnt sit in the water.

Without the germination pad the soil temp was getting down to 55ish degrees on the cold days but the top was still warm. I had talked to someone about roots going dormant and not being able to feed the leaves, I dont know how true that actually is.

I did repot the tree out of the black container from the nursery,but this was already happening then. The tree looked perfect when it arrived, this hadn't start yet.

looks like I'll be getting a humidifier for now. thanks everybody.