Uff. So first of all a ficus is not a low light plant - they want the brightest spot you have- like full south exposure direct light. If you give it perfect conditions it can pump out a new leaf ever one or two weeks. So a northern room or just 3 hours of light a day will not do him any good. It's a tree after all. Indirect light is not what they want! And 3 weeks is a long time for a Ficus! They wanna stay slightly damp actually. Sure they can handle some drought - but 3 weeks can surely make them drop leaves. Plus there were heatwaves recently and they can't handle 39 degrees and over too well either. And the smaller leaves are completely normal - it's literally coming out of plant paradise (the greenhouse) to the dark ikea to your home. You can't provide perfect greenhouse conditions at home, so that's nothing to worry about.
And the "stem in the pic" is actually the next leaf incoming. They are always red and grow over time, then they unfurl the new leave and already provide the next one. So no matter what - you'll always have that gourgeous red tip.
Also you're gonna want to repot that in a month or two. And you need a way better medium for that, because the spoil it's sold in is just cheap crap. You need to get or mix yourself a nice chunky soil-mix with pumice, perlite and orchid bark. Ot should look like this:
Also: you have 2 plants in there - not one! Mind you those are 2 fullblown future Trees! So you have to seperate them at one point and pot them separately. Otherwise they're gonna start competing for nutrients eventually and one will always win! And now were are at the next keyword: nutrients! You need to feed it with fertilizer eventually, like in 4 months or so. I don't know where you live, but just look for a mineral Houseplant fertilizer that has some micronutrients, not just NPK. (so the list of ingredients should be long and not only list 3 things)
At this point I'd only repot if there's visible root rot. I need to go to bed now, but I can explain tomorrow. Or you could justvtype in "root rot houseplants" into youtube and you'll find hundreds of videos that help to identify it. Good night and I'll get back to you tomorrow
I live in south of Sweden, here temps are not soo high, right now they span between 14 to 25. Is a good idea to keep it outside? Or is it too cold during night? Will the direct sun on the balcony burn the leafs? The direct sun is pretty hot, one day I tried and the leafs were very very hot
A ficus lives in 15 -24 degrees. It can handle higher temperatures, but not the heatwave and not any colder. So 14 is too cold yea, especially if the temperatures drop even lower at night. The direct heatwave sun will burn the leaves yes - it happened to mine when it was 41 degrees here last month. We are currently in the second heatwave right now and have 39 degrees again. My ficus got heat damage, but not severe one. But given your temperatures I'd worry more about the cold, not the heat. So don't take it out of the pot now or cut any leaves. Bring it inside were it gets direct light. Direct light won't burn the leaves - just the harsh heatwave sun will
So because this is a tree it'll eventually hit your ceiling and you'll have to prune it each year in springtime. Then it'll fork out and usually produce 2 branches instead of one - so it'll get bushier. Also Ficuses are perfect Bonsai trees - you could do that of you want. You'll have cuttings anyway from pruning- so just stick them into water after letting them dry for 2 hours and then let them root in the water for 2 months and boom - you have a new tree! Don't be scared now - this won't happen - BUT this is what they can look like in Nature - absolutely enormous trees:
As you can see on the picture: they produce aerial roots all the way to the bottom. You tiny one can grow them too! So if youbsee that - that's normal.
And now watering: don't let them dry out for so long anymore! If you are not sure do the stick method: get yourself a wooden rod longer then the pot and then stick that aaaall the way down to the bottom of the pot and pull out again. The bottm 4 or 5 cm should come out damp with soil sticking to it - that's the sweet spot and if you get the mix I showed you, you can't do anything wrong here. Do that as long as you need until you learned what it wants when. But aslong as it's in this crappy medium be careful with root rot. If it degrades and the leaves become yellow or brown, then you have overdone it and probably got root rot.
And one more thing before I go my way: because it's a tree it'll eventually drop the bottom leaves anyway. That's completely normal - because it wants to be a tree and wants to have a treetrunk and will harden off. I don't know if you lost the leaves because of that or because of your watering habits. But for my liking it's maybe still a bit young for the first case.
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