First ever grow & with free seeds

This week was interesting for sure. Couple new stages of growth all around. I started a bubble bucket sort of project if you will. I want to better incorporate and "brew" my fertigation. As per the directions of my nutrients, it will naturally bring the ph up of my solution. I have two, 14" air stones running off of a small Walmart aquarium pump. It's not doing what I wanted to exactly, so I have a stronger pump and some more/different airstones. I learned that I need to fertigate my plants due to my medium choice. It is primarily coco, so I am keeping it saturated. Usually once a day, not quite to a gallon per pot, but close. I know I should be testing my runoff as well. I belive I had much more than the recommended 10-20%, measuring in at 80oz(the size of my container to empty my drip pans). I measured ph & ppm for the first time today and have a very high ppm, 3k to 5k between the four individual plants. Maybe this is suggesting that I had more feed built into my media than I expected? Ppm going in hasn't been anywhere near 1k yet. Ph was right around 7.0 for all of them if you could believe it. Ph going in has been around 5.5-6.0. I made the decision today to go with a topping strategy even though they're autos, solely based on the fact the growth this week has been explosive and they look as healthy as they do. I went with a technique recommended to me by a grower in another community I'm apart of, made popular by YouTuber Grand Master Level. Instead of a typical top or FIM, you remove the small, new nodal growth in the center and wait for the lower branches to catch up to the rest of the plant in height. It seems to be a simple, and pretty low stress topping technique to me. I removed what would have been the 5th nodes on each plant. That resulted in opening the plant up some, as well as leaving the smallest 6th node leaves. Once they grow large enough to be able to clip, they will go too. I am enjoying myself on this journey so far. I thought I was hyperfixating on it a few times this week and felt fatigued, but it hasn't killed my drive to move forward and see it to the finish, good bad or ugly. We will see what happens going forward. This is what first grows are for.