As you can see by these pictures, I've got some odd things happening. I'm not worried at all though- I have a decisive plan to fix it.
First of all, discoloration is not happening on the budsite leaves...only the leaves without bud.
One of the plants had dark, dark green leaves and is now transitioning to normal colored green leaves (I moved it's placement in the tent...it's the "runt" of the litter and should have been under the bulb more directly). This is pretty cool to watch.
There is some browning of the tips, yellowing as well, and curling upwards, which suggests either heat burn or nute burn. I've been having minor heat burns on another plant (before I rotated it) so I have a plan in mind- add a fan clipped onto the bottom of the ballast blowing air across the direct area beneath the ballast. An added fan on the ballast will definitely help this minor problem.
As a poster in my help thread brought to my attention, I haven't flushed my plants at all, since seedling. Didn't really occur to me that they might need this. So tonight and probably again tomorrow, I'm flushing by pouring straight water into the plants respective pots. Tomorrow I'll do water pH'ed to 5.5. Hopefully this improves the health of my random foliage.
The only other thing I envision this being is a pH problem. I've let my res. slide anywhere from 5.5-6.5pH, and I'm going to be more strict now...I want it at about 5.5-5.8 to start, we'll see how that goes.
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Noticing a slight yellowing of some fan leaf tips. Cutting back on nutrients (I've added nutrients every time I've topped off the tank...I'm dropping my ppm to about 800 before adding more nutrients) The last two tank re-fills have been straight water for this reason.
Besides this and some minor light burn that I fixed by rotating the girls, everything looks great....
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Holy pistils, batman! All 4 of my girls have beautiful pistils popping out. It's safe to say that they're all female. (right??)

They're growing and growing. Nothing out of the ordinary to report!

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Plants are still looking very healthy. Consumption of nutrients/water is growing more and more. I find myself having to replace the solution in the reservoir more often.

I inspected my plants thoroughly this morning, and I don't really see any pre-flowers yet. I'll be looking more closely within the next few days, because they should be appearing rather soon.

everyone's favorite part...eye candy!

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Swapped out the bulbs last night to my 400W HPS, and re-programmed the timers. The plants are growing fast, so I raised my light just a little bit so they wouldn't get too close.


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First day under HPS

My tallest girl is 11".
I've decided that I will switch everything over to flowering after lights out tonight, rather than waiting another week or so.

HPS bulb going in, and light timer being set to 12/12. Flood timer is being modified to not flood table while lights are out.

I'll post back tomorrow with pics under new lighting :mrgreen:

Still growing like crazy. Tallest one is 9" tall. Can't wait to start flowering at 12". Very bushy. Amazing, healthy looking leaves. New growths every day.

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Taken today right after a flooding of the ebb&flow table.
(Again, camera shutter causing the light shadow lines across the picture, :confused:)

Today I topped up my nutrient reservoir with 3gal. of filtered water / lucas formula @ 100%. Now, my ppm is about 980. Monitoring the pH...it's a little high right now at 6.3, added some pH down and waiting for balancing to check results.
I have a few roots poking out the bottom of the pots, but it's not worrying me too much, I don't think I'll need to transplant. I'm only growing to 2.5'-3'. Flowering at 1'.

In other news, they're still looking amazing. New growth all over the place. Vibrantly green leaves. Great luck so far! :hump:

Eye candy: (excuse the weird light pattern due to my M.H. bulb and iPhone camera not liking eachother)
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It's been a while since my last entry...man, my ladies have really been growing!

Over the weekend, I started them with the flood & drain system. Watering 5 times a day while lights are on. They're growing like crazy!
Yesterday I topped each of the plants (cut new growth at main stem to encourage branching out) and they have already sprung up with new sideways growth. One of the pictures below shows the growth quite well...the third picture in this entry.

The one concern I've had is how the 1st set of leaves look. After careful consideration and review of what I've done, I determined the problem to be me misting the leaves and my light burning the leaves due to the diffusion of light through water. I know...n00b mistake. If it was a chemical burn, etc. it would follow through on my new sets of leaves...thankfully though, every set of leaves but the first set look perfect!

P.S. my iPhone's camera shutter doesn't seem to agree with my M.H. light too much..thus, the linear distortion in the pictures.
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Last night, I transplanted the rockwool cubes into their full-sized pots, with hydroton. I also swapped out the 125W CFL for my 400W MH. It's about 24 inches from the plants right now, I'm trying to stress them as little as possible so I'll probably be lowering it within the next few days gradually.
I'm top watering as needed. Not really sure what to go off of for checking if watering is needed...so if I check them and the rockwool is completely dried out, I give them a good watering. I increased the ppm of nutrients to around 700ppm. I'm going to begin watering with the ebb&flow after a few days of my girls getting used to their new homes.

The leaves are getting bigger. They look perfectly healthy. Still in the solo cups...planning on a transplant to the ebb&flow on Monday. I gently lifted the cubes off of the surface of the hydroton today, to check root development. All 4 are pushing strong roots out the bottom. I did this so they don't get too rooted in...I want as easy of a transplant as possible

Each of my babies individually:

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All 4 with light raised:
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All 4 with light in position:
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I switched the 125W CFL from 24/0 to 18/6, which is what I'll be using for the entirety of the veg cycle. We turn up the heat in the house at night, so my veg cycle is from 7AM-1AM, and my flower cycle will be 7AM-7PM.

Mixed up a new solution to fill the solo cups with to the desired level outlined in my previous entry.
Lucas formula, 1/2 strength, + 75% strength B-52 supplement, + distilled water. PPM is at about 600.

Filled back up to desired level while there was still about half of the pH'ed water from yesterday in the cups, so the solution is starting off even weaker...my estimation is ~25%. I plan to keep nutrient solution added at 50% strength until I swap in my 400W MH light and transplant to the ebb&flow system. I mixed a half gallon of it to start, which should be plenty to tide me over for a while.

I'm a little concerned about the humidity levels inside the enclosure, which are hovering around 32% with CFL on. I placed a container of water under the light next to the solo cups, hopefully that will increase the humidity. Probably more-so when the 400W MH is used, because that creates a lot more heat to evaporate the water into the air.
Temp, on the other hand, is PERFECT. I have the ceramic oscillating heater outside the enclosure, about 5 feet away and pointing at it set at 70F, and the temp in the tent is holding steady at 72F.

4/4 now have their first baby leaves developing. 2 of the 4 have a small root already protruding from the bottom of the cube. Because of this, I placed each cube in its own solo cup, with a small layer of hydroton. 1 of the 4 has yet to shake its seed shell.

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Since the humidity dome is now removed, I have to be more concerned about adequate moisture, so I filled the solo cups with a water solution (pH'ed at a little under 6...filtered water @ 105ppm + a slight amount of B-52 supplement = ~200ppm total) just shy of the top of the hydroton. I will add more when needed. I'll transplant to my full ebb&flow system in a few days. When it goes into the ebb&flow, I'll probably give it one more cycle on the CFL and then switch over to my 400W MH.

125W CFL is now lowered about 2in. from the top of the plants.

Here's a picture of the seedling top that looks furthest along.

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3 of the 4 rockwool cubes have sprouted at least a little bit. I'm hoping the 4th one will come up today. More to come later tonight.

Update:

Great growth while I was out today. I can now at least see all 4..3 of them are looking strong while the 4th is looking healthy, just a little slow. I'm expecting it to look like it's companions soon, though.

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As soon as I get a solid set of leaves on each seedling, the dome will come off and I'll drop the light even closer.