Purple punch

Hello Gingerskunk yes you can cut them . like this it will bring a better air circulation and more light for lower branches. Good luck. Bye

If your ph drops there is to high of an ec level cuz they drink more water than food. When your dialed in, they drink and eat pretty evenly. Ph keeps dropping because they drink to much water and if your ph rises they don't get enough food so they need higher ec. I would say with autos your ec is to high. Try 650 ppm 1.3 ec. See if that stabilizes your ph, but prepare the water 24 hours in advance to let the ph settle out before nuting and ph ing your water.

Awesome set up man those are huge. I’d consider maybe mixing up outside the buckets first.. letting sit for 24 hrs before putting in the bucket. Those are massive plants for what looks like 5 gallon buckets, they’re in their prime time for sucking down water.. id be willing to be part of the drop in pH was simply from them suckin in water but not nutrients. When this happens the pH usually goes down. CO2 being brought thru the air pump into the stones can also cause pH swings.. Hope this helps! Those are huge plants, good work

You could if you really wanted to, no one will stop you. But at this point I would just let it go and use some small amounts of LST vs defoliation. Good Luck!