first time grow/balcony/northernlights (1xfem, 2x auto)

his was a very eventful week. I put in the tag "defoliation" but it was forced upon me rather than my decision. In the beginning, I thought I would try some LST (low-stress training) to maximize the sun on branches with buds, but I realized that I didn't know what I was doing and that it works a bit differently than expected. So, I stopped the experiment the day after. In the process, I broke off a small branch which I couldn't save with tape, but this is a run to make mistakes with anyway. In the middle of the week, I realized that I had a pest problem (from looking it up, it seemed to be aphids). Luckily, the worst plant was the regular plant, and I removed almost all the leaves I could see bugs on (on all plants), even if there were just 1-2 bugs I could see. I would rather do the damage to the plants myself rather than let pests do it. The tallest plant was affected the least, and I think I took more leaves off the smaller autoflower than I should have. After removing the leaves, I learned that I could also just squish the bugs myself, so this is what I did the next couple of days until I saw nothing left (I will monitor strictly in the future). On the bright side, the weather was a lot better this week and the soil was able to dry properly for the first time in a long time. The autoflower with the nicer looking bud is smelling really nice but not super strong. I gave the plants a light amount of Plagron Alga Bloom but not very much as they don’t show signs of deficiency as far as I can tell. (In the beginning of week 9, I saw some signs of most likely either nutrient burn or potassium deficiency on the tips of two leaves. I transplanted using Plagron's Royal Mix, so there are at least some nutrients in there still). I gave some Alga Grow to the regular plant and i feel like the leave took a nice dark green color and other than then the pests/ defoliating i did it seems to react well. But i will still be carefull with feeding.