First grow with Training wheels

Greetings, all. I'll start by saying I've worked around these plants plenty after being contracted by several local LPs but never in my wildest dreams, say, 5 years ago, did I believe I'd be growing plants in my own home. This is absolutely a first for me - but I'm usually really good at growing tomatoes and zucchini.. so this can't be THAT hard - it's a weed! Started off by following instructions verbatim from Grower's Choice seeds. (I could go on and on about how poor of an experience I had dealing with this company but for now I'll keep it about my grow). I'm starting with 2 indoor and 2 outdoor (ie. 1 Tangerine Dream and 1 Critical Purple inside and 1 of each outside). Both strains are autoflower feminized. Inside/Outside because I'm curious about controlled vs uncontrolled. The seeds sprouted fast using the suppliers suggested germination method and within 3 days I had my indoors planted with my outdoors close behind (I'll plant them outside tomorrow). Grown in recommended herb/veg soil provided by a local greenhouse supplier in 20L pots. Tested ph/moisture using an Amazon purchased meter. Ph showing just a tad under 7 with moisture right in the green. The 'grow tent' is a mish-mash of items I had around the house - some foam board basement insulation (with the shiny reflective side on the inside) constructed into a box structure secured by a steel shelving unit. Dimensions are 4' wide, 5' high, 2' deep. I've sealed it using aluminum reflective tape and have an inline duct fan releasing the air outside. Phlizon 900W LED Grow Light purchased from Amazon. It came highly rated so I figured it can't be terrible. From everything I've read, an 18/6 schedule should be good. But I'm open to change if someone explains a good reason why. I'll do my best to provide updates as frequently as I can - more so to help me review my progress of this new hobby but hopefully helping some of you too (as you have helped me during my 'lurking' period). If anyone has any questions/comments for a n00b, I'm all ears. Fingers crossed for a Bountiful harvest.

Since this is a new venture for me, not sure what to say. Critical Purple is ahead by a long shot but both seem to be going quite slow. Not sure if my meters are working. I know our water (well) is quite basic (suspect around 7.5). Could it be PH problems? is this normal to be this slow? CP seems healthy as the leaves are strong and the stem seems good. But TD is way behind.

Week 3. I've all but given up on my TnD. It's simply just not going which is a bummer since it was the first to sprout at germination. The micro leaves are still green so I haven't given up all hope but it may be false hope. The Critical Purple indoor; however, has proved to be quick at picking up the pace. I had to move my CP outdoor into my indoor (keeping somewhat the same light schedule) as the overnight temps are dropping a little lower than I want. We'll see how it goes. If I can even get two good plants at the end, I'll be happy.

Plant 1 lagged heavily from the start but Plant 2 decided to race and has easily outshined Plant 1. Note Plant 1 was outside for about 2 weeks prior to me pulling her in to give her a better chance. I'm glad I did it. My Tangerine Dream; however, has died. RIP TnD.

Every day I'm getting more excited at the results. Plant 1 still outshining Plant 2, I havn't been able to get an accurate PH reading from my meters since about Week 1 so now I'm just hoping the pH is fine. I'm using rain water exclusively, using an aquarium bubbler to add air to the water and mixing the nutes in carefully (very very low dose - perhaps 1/4 of the recommended).

Did some minor LST today but I'm terrified of bending too far. Used some long horseshoe lawn pins that I had lying around to bend her as far as I'm willing to go. She seems strong - and quite healthy. I also noticed some very small holes in one of the leaves only to locate a damn aphid fly sitting on one of the leaves. I suspect that's the culprit as the grow tent is quite sealed from outside.