Gelato DWC SCROG (first hydro grow)

This is my first hydro grow and first time with clones. I have a few semi successful outdoor grows under my belt but the weather (hot AF) and caterpillar apocalypse (lost a beast of a plant and the tops of most others) last year are forcing me inside. Reservoir is an hdx 27 gallon tote with 15 gallons of actual water capacity about 1/4” under net pots. Attached to 1/4 hp active aqua chiller (overkill but got a deal and am in so cal; last years consistent 100+ temps ravaged my outdoor grow and can even make indoor temp regulation difficult) with two 5” and one 4” air stones in main res and one 4” in a 5 gallon top off res (not part of the system until/if I need it) attached to two 15L/minute active aqua air pumps. I wanted to have a bit of a barrier between the ambient temps inside the tent (rest of the room is a/c controlled) and the actual reservoir so I built a base to set the tent sans bottom putting the top of the res at the floor of the tent. This also raises the reservoir off the ground and hoping it will save some back aches once scrog comes into play. This also frees up 16” of vertical space inside tent and although I intend to scrog it should help as a buffer with temps and I won’t have to worry about light distance since plants are at floor level. To keep as much unnecessary heat out of the 4x2 tent the spider farmer light ballast was removed and relocated to outside the tent which I’m glad because during testing the ballast and light are each producing 120 degrees. Half of that is outside the tent allowing the temps inside the tent to stay about around when room temp is about 78 (a/c off but weather is fluctuating) with a small fan at base level and a 6” clip on fan for higher up. Reservoir will be 66-68 at all times thanks to the chiller. For ph management I am going to be using a torus hydro perfect ph (35 gallon). I’m hoping their claims aren’t just hype because they say it removes H+ and OH- ions to allow the ph to maintain 5.8 - 6.2 ph (without any additional buffers). This small fluctuation allows all nutrients to be taken in while a stagnant ph will prevent certain nutrient uptake hence a more complete usage. These are claims among others they made, let’s see if the science is legit. Unfortunately this being my first hydro grow I have no standard to base this off, but if I don’t have to worry about my ph that’s one less worry. Nutrients will be GH flora trio and cal-mag plus hydroguard. Not sure about additional additives, want to keep it pretty basic but suggestions for this nute/strain combo would be appreciated. I was intending on growing wedding cake or venom og but cake was sold out and venom didn’t look great so I ended up coming home with two gelato clones from universal nurseries. I’ve always liked this strain but wanted the cake because I’ve read it’s highly resilient. What I was not expecting was that these would be rooted in neoprene. I’m new to hydro and aside from the research and reading throughout my grows I usually overlooked neoprene. I guess it could be better than the rock wool as it shouldn’t leach and mess with ph? They are surrounded by hydroton and will be hand watered until roots make it to water. Update day 6: I went against my better judgment and initially painted my lid for light leakage. Ended up dumping my entire reservoir two days in because it was full of paint chips (even though it was formulated for plastic it still chipped off in high volume). Used a drill pump from HD, worked well as the intake is a 1/4” pvc tube I could suck up the paint chips and the water, but DO NOT USE to transfer anything but waste water as the output contained grease from the pump! Got a new lid and will just be using panda film for light blockage. Added a small humidifier because rh was in the 30-40 range, now temps and rh are consistently 70 degrees and about 65%. Nutes are 1/4 strength except calimag due likely to stoned math... Plants don’t seem to be minding so I’m not trying to sweat it much. Slight upward drift in ppm and ec as water is taken in or evaporates and ph is slowly swinging in the range torus hydro said it would so that is a success as I have not used any buffers. They claim it is more effective when it can directly interact with a root mass so it seems promising. New growth sprouting all over but no roots have made it out of the net pots. I went with 6” hoping roots will branch laterally exposing move root mass to the air gap once developed. Started noticing slight yellowing of leaves day 4 and some drooping (due to low rh as they perked up after adding humidifier) so I went from 50ml top feed daily to 100ml, also turned light down to 15% and everyone is happy.