Fast Buds Tester FF 9 - Mostly Indica

I had initially wanted to defoliate around week 3 but as I was watching the buds develop and I evaluated the bushiness and leaf coverage of a lot of buds, I decided to go ahead and do the final defoliation at the beginning of week 2. I have read that it is better to wait so that it does not take away from that early bud growth due to the stress. But my thought was, how will many of the buds get growth anyway without getting proper light. So I went ahead with the defoliation. Only way for me to know is to diary this experience and try a week 3 defoliation next grow for compare. A few grows ago I had an issue due to over defoliation so this is something I am still honing in on with my craft. I saw no stress from defoliation. Instead, I feel like she had a great growth spurt after. Watered with Tiger Bloom (2 tsp/gal), Big Bloom (3 tsp/gal) and Grow Big (2 tsp/gal) on 1/29/20 and again on 2/1/20 with plain water both times pH'd to 6.4. She shows a little color change after the feeding. She is stretching in a nice reasonable manner. Some LST done. All of the FastBuds plants have a significant flower size compared to garden mates. She has not had any obvious recovery time from any of the topping, LST and defoliation. Speaking of pH, I had to go invest in a $40 pen from a grow store (probably half that on Amazon) because I was having to re-calibrate the old one around every 20 min and I could not take it anymore. The new one seems to stabilize on the numbers better so I am hoping I am now getting true readings.