The system doesnt look bad, but your top light needs to move DOWN. What is that exactly?

In my defense this is my first experience with this setup and first time with hydro, so it is a bit different than the random plants outdoors that I didn't check on regularly.

So, the plant was a free seed thrown in from Amsterdam. It was some hybrid indica/sativa cross. Beyond that I don't know anything about the strain. It was 37 days ago that I put them onto the 12/12, which was three weeks after the roots came through the 3" rockwool cube. It was 12" tall at the time.
The light is 400 W HPS, new bulb. The daytime temp averages 83 degrees.
The medium is rockwool and the nutes are Advanced Nutrients, the seni- grow, bloom, big bud, vita boost, stuff. There is only one plant in the space as the other plant was male and had to go.
In the last pic I posted you can see the plant is actually against the right wall and then I have been pulling it over with bonsai wire to try and maximize.

I just followed the instructions that came with my setup and the nutes. Apparently they were more ambitious about their time frames than is realistic for this strain, perhaps for any strain.

Well you also want that light to be about 6 inches away from plant.. no more than a foot. Hydro works great, but it depends on the grower and the system. When its DARK in there, is it absolutely dark? That's of primary importance. That set up should produce 8 ounces of good dry bud when finished. Just a bit of tweaking your procedures which you can find here, and you'll be fine.

The light doesn't move, in fact, it is separated from the space by glass and ventilated separately as well. So I might could consider a system to raise the container and then lower it incrementally.
But some of the spreading has been my efforts, the plant tended to be really tall and wanted to grow straight up.

Yes, the dark is completely dark. The doors are sealed, there is minor light leakage during the day and the room stays dark all the time. There wouldn't be enough ambient light in the room to even leak through those tiny holes.

After all of this you can probably guess where I got my setup.

Thanks for the advice and the encouragement, makes me feel a bit better about my investment.

The training of the plant is fine, its more a penetration and effectiveness of the light kind of thing. Yeah a couple of boxes to move it up when YOUNG and down as it grows and matures might not be a bad idea. A good fan blowing around the space to strengthen the Branches is also necessary. Just little tweaks as I said.

Looks like the design was to grow MANY smaller plants in a tight space to maximize the Lumens per sq.

So what about if I try and fill the tub next time with nine plants, should I still put the tub closer to the light?

what id do its grow them under a small bank of cfls.. 4 bulbs which you CAN move up, until you flower, then turn on HPS. There's a lot of discussion about "spectrums" but I prefer 6500K for starter plants. If you were moving clones into those 9 pots, you would have a pretty consistant plant height and size.

I've got a separate veg chamber set up for 12 plants and a 125 W cfl. But the situation is the same, can't move the light. Although it isn't separated by glass. Maybe I moved the plants to the flower side too soon. Next time I will let them get larger before I try to flower.

Again, I was just following directions. But I am thinking now that they were way too fast. I mean for my total growing time I am doing pretty good, right? Its just that they seemed slow to flower, but maybe they were just finishing vegging whether I screwed with the lights or not.

Your plants look pretty good.

Do you have meters for tds and pH ?

What size of light are you using for flower ?

Dense buds come from intense light, not nutes.

Try to move your plants
as close as possible
if you are using florescent light.

I don't count the transition between veg and flower,
this period will vary with different strains.

It is a good idea to switch to flower nutes
when you flip the lights to 12/12

The lower nitrogen levels of the flower nutes
will help push the plant in that direction.

Light spectrum and room temp
can also affect the transition time.

Your buds look like they are about two weeks into flower.
I would give them another 6 weeks or more.

If you have a tds meter,
add 50ppm AN Hammerhead
or 50ppm DM Potash Plus.

I have even used these two products @200ppm
without any part A&B
but I did get some minor tip burn.

Here is a post about lighting.
Caligirl's lighting thread