First Grow - 3 Plants & Strains

So I started out the week not wanting to "do too much" because I hadn't started to see any bud site growth. With their last water on Sun., June 23 they all drank 1 Gal. ea. with nutrients and the same on Tues. the 25th. On Wed., the 26th I finally started to see those little hairs that every one so greatly anticipates. Of course I took pics for posterity. I was happy to see that in the 5 days since I last took measurements that all 3 grew 3.5" each. The girls and I seem to have gotten into a nice pattern of watering every other day but before feeding them on Thurs I was talking with my wife and we came upon the subject of why the Widow, which was the clear growth champ at the beginning, was now the runt of the litter. My wife thought that she might have been getting shaded by the other 2 plant and suggested sliding them over an inch...and so the Cheese and Kush were moved and inch away from the Widow that sits in the middle. Also on the 27th I removed all of the lawn staples that I was using for LST and performed some lower pruning. Getting rid of leaves and lower end bud sites that wouldn't really grow into anything, giving the plant the focus to concentrate on the higher bud sites on the branch. 1 Gal. each again with nutes although there was no run-off from the Widow so I gave her what wound up to be another 1/3 of a gallon of water (no nutes) before I started to see some run-off. So here we are at the end of Week 9/Flower Week 2. Before feeding it was measurement time again. So in the 3 days (which isn't a lot) since their last measurements (drum roll please)...Triple Cheese grew 4.5" to 26.5", White Widow added 3.75" for 20.75"., and Critical Kush must have slipped some roids past me because she bulked up 4.75" up to 28.25". What!?! At the beginning of Week 8 I had raised my light up to 36" from the Widow, which means it was around 31", 32" away from the Kush. Today the light was 18" away from the Kush. I raised my light again nowbefore closing it up. It is now as high as it can go in the tent and it's 24" from the Kush. (I hope this doesn't become an issue.) I decided it was time for some de-foliage. There were a lot of fan leaves that were shading others and some (what I think to be) pretty good bud sites. I also did a little more pruning on the inside, & lower parts of some stalks(?) so the plant can concentrate it's energy on higher bud sites. Afterwards the girls drank a gallon each with nutes with barely any run-off. It might be time soon to start adding some amount of water with no nutes to the "off days". I'll have to take a look tomorrow and make a decision.