Thanks for getting back to me :-)

so the girls have been in the pots for about 5 weeks now, i see no sign that the roots are looking for more space as yet.

As for the nutes i have been gradually introducing some "baby bio" (http://www.bayergarden.co.uk/product...goryid=8)which is a kind of cover all nute from the uk which the girls seem to like , since starting with this they seem to have put on a growth spurt, i have some ionic soil bloom for when its time so fingers crossed everything is going along fine.

as for topping etc i'm a bit scared to be honest, i'm not 100% sure what i'm doing and as i'm not struggling for space i thought i'd just leave well alone.

once again thanks for your input, you kinda backed up my plan of just leave alone and watch and learn, the only reason i wanted to try a few clones was to mess about with them to see how different things worked (or didn't) with a plant i was kinda familiar with and it didn't really matter if i killed them