any advice on light cycles
She will need 18 hours of uninterupted light and 6 hours of uninterupted darkness in order to vegetate. Once she gets to about a foot to a foot and a half from the top of your pot she will need 12 hours of lights on and 12 hours of lights off, also, uninterupted.
During vegeative growth you want to wait till the soil is almost dry before feeding and watering. Your plants look a little over watered possible causing the leaves to drop. Eventually you will notice a routine happening where your plants will consume water over a day or so and you can set your routine to that.
nute ideas or any general info you think would better my grow would be appreciated
For vegetative growth you need to feed her fertilizer that is higher in nitrogen (N) than phosporous (P) and potassium (K). (assuming your soil does not already have nutrient in it). Most good nutrients will have the NPK rating somewhere on the bottle.
If your soil is already preloaded with nutrient then you probably wont need to add any nutrient till about week 4.
Your plants need lots of air, put a fan on them. Air has CO2 in it, something plants consume like kids in a candy store. Fanned air will also help toughen your plants up. A bit like a body builder, the bigger the muscles the more nutrient they need.
Once you switch the light cycle from 18 on 6 off, to 12 on 12 off you also need to change to a fertilizer that has NPK rating for flowering, usually the nitrogen (N) is lower than the phosporous (P) and potassium (K) because you are wanting to trigger the plants flowering cycle and spend less time creating vegetation.
Within a week or two of switching the light cycle you will start to see the little hairs form letting you know you have female plants. Check on google for photos of what they look like and also for photos of what the male pods look like. If you have a male then you need to remove it as you do not want it to pollenate your females.
By that time the watering cycle should be daily as your plants begin to demand more food for bud growth. Be careful not to over water, but they will demand more and more nutrient as the buds grow.
That should be enough for now to get you going. Keep coming back in here and asking more questions and posting photos of whats happening.
Most importantly, learn about getting the pH of your watering correct. Here is a instructional video that will help you with that called, "PH & Flushing streaming video".
http://www.ganjaguerrilla.net/calendar.html
Get that bit sorted and control your watering and I think those problems will clear up in a weeks time.
