Have learned so much about my plants during this grow! As a newbie and no previous growing experience, I am learning as I go but some of the things I have learned so far:
* Initial soil medium did not have any nutrients in them. I watered my plants accordingly early on but the growth was marginal at best.
* Using carbon filtered water with a pH reading of 6.8 is working well but was concerned about why plants were not growing that well. Found an article on this site about soft/hard water and its PPM readings and the ideal measure. I bought a PPM/ECD reader and thought maybe it was broken but my water was reading maybe if I am lucky 3-5 PPM. Article mentioned something about an ideal PPM is around 120. So...I went and bought a Ca/Mg nutrient additive (up here in Canada I am using Diablo line of nutrients(Micro, Grow, Bloom, Liquid CAL and Frost)...honestly will not be using any other brand...this nutrient line has saved my plants and they are flourishing!). The PPM was around 180 and only need to use once a week.
*Once I added the Ca/Mg nutrient and started on early mixture of nutrients, my plants took off! Like the growth was unbelievable!!! Plants went a very nice deep green, leaves were very healthy.
*Kept on with the watering with early growth mix ratio for about 7 days for all 3 plants (roughly a 375PPM measurement). After that went with Diablo recommended mix ratio with the bigger plant for mid-level growth (jumped to about 675-700PPM) and that is when it again went into "growth overdrive". Stayed with the early growth mix ratio for other 2 plants. They also continued to flourish!
*Topped and transplanted the initial plant on day 34 (double stress...will probably learn from that to not introduce too much stress but luckily plant recovered nicely). Node spacing seems quite short but topped at 5th node (from wat I counted anyways...lol). I will upload some newer pics later this weekend as the growth after topping stalled for about a day or 2 while plant recovered from the stress but has recovered very well and I ended topping again with the 2 new main stems. Next step will be to let growth continue and increase my watering as I am easily watering close to half gallon a day with plant #1.
*I am going to top plants #2 and #3 this weekend and look to transplant into final pots next weekend.

As growth continues, will introduce a ScrOG when plants reach about 12-14" and look to see if I can do some LST as well.

So far very pleased with growth now. As a newbie my only advice so far...Patience is key!