Hey Polish, yeah I agree, and I did switch to the 5gal buckets. Plants are doing superb, all about a foot tall, green as can be and bushy. I think they have been in their 5gal buckets for 3 weeks now. So in all, they are 4 weeks give or take a day or two. I haven't changed my rez once, but from what Im seeing and how Polish explained it, do I need to? Here's an update:

My ppm is around 300-400 still!!! The plants arent intaking the nutes, but they are very healthy.. I dont understand this. They started at about 400-450, and in the 3 weeks they've had this nute batch, they have only gotten into the low 300's on some. Some are 400 still.

One other thing: the room has been about 80 the whole time. In the first few weeks, it got up to 85 a few times, but ive put a stop to that and havent seen a temp over 82 since.

When you say roots drowning, heres my question: When you have well established ladies in 5 gal buckets, about how many inches of gap should the water be from the bottom of the basket? I've got it at about 1-2 inches below.

pH wise, I started at 5.8. The first time I had to top off, they had gotten to 7.0 pH. I topped off with about 5.2 pH. I had to top off last night, and they were at about 6.5, so I used about 5.2pH for top off. (using tap water). Am I not on the ball enough with pH to allow nute intake? I know it needs to be close to 5.8 for best results. Just from my own experience, messing with pH and stressing over it isnt worth the hassle, especially if the girls are healthy. I could add pH down to the rez's every other day to really keep it in range.... Do I need to do that? But as I said, I see no concerns atm.