Quick One 1st grow

Do you have an exhaust fan pulling old air out of the tent and sucking new air in? On top of that do you have an air conditioner to bring the temps down in room your tent is in. You could also upgrade to some high-end leds like quantum boards which only need half as many watts for the same yields meaning lower temps. Also leds dont put out nearly as much if any infrared light which basically equates to heat being beamed down on your plants. Quantum boards dont cost all that much any more and a 120w would do just as well as your 250w hid. Here is a very solid and cheap light: https://m.alibaba.com/product/62013633602/detail.html?activity_id=icbu_minisite_web&channel=minisite_a2706.wapshop.113.i5&from=icbu_minisite_web&isFromApp=1&scenery_id=2&language=en&currency=USD&spm=a2706.wapshop.113.i5&_aplus_page_enable=true&wx_navbar_transparent=true If you need any more assistance feel free to message me.

Ok good! Now knowing that, are you venting out a window so the hot air isn't being pulled back into the tent? Like the other grower said 25.6C isn't too bad. Before I turned on my ac the other day I hit temps of 30C and my plants were okay with that for a couple of days while I was hoping the weather would cool down. A big sign of heat stress is the leaves cupping/tacoing. Another temp solution if you are venting outside, is the use of an air conditioner to cool the room outside the grow space. the cooler the air the exhaust can pull into the tent, the cooler the whole tent will be.

Yes that is just the way to do it! Your plants grew lots of height probably 'cos your lamp distance was a bit too high. I suggest that you lower your lamp a little bit if you don't have any troubles with burning the plants

Hey gardener! You can totally do it. With the HPS, you remove the 0 and you have the right distance, so 250 watts is 25 cm, and if you have a cool tube, you can go down to 15 cm or even 12.5 cm. Plus, if you bring your light closer, it will prevent your plant from stretching long stems towards the bulb, and it will stay more compact. Good luck to you, bella ciao!

I would not defoliate at this point 'cos you can easily see through the plant and from my understanding its good to defoliate only when there is lots of leaves and ------you +really feel like the plant is not needing it. I've seen too many diaries with too much defo and you can clearly see how it affected the yields in the end. Even I did too much at some point in my first grow.. It's all up to you to decide but I feel like it would be better to leave them be for now 👌