jozi: the wall of ballasts has been waiting patiently for plexiglass covers, which will seal them and their heat on a separate vent system from the rest of the room, the fallout from which will be better air exchange in the ballast zone and good clean heat. (part of the reason we didn't make it out of the 60%s as far as turning the lights up all the way this summer). there's a small swamp cooler in that corner right now but that's just a temporary fix.
there are hella oscillating fans all over the place, right at shoulder-blade level (mr kitty likes to take the cages off them *grrrr*) and a floor blower in each corner.
cg & beans: i've been noticing the claw and i have no idea what it's about. over the years i've noticed that different plants behave differently in hydro and soil, i'm wondering if this is a factor here. hashplant, for instance, looks like a normal plant in rdwc. and then you take that same clone and stick it in dirt and *bang* the retarded claw. none of the nl crosses i've ever grown nor afghanis did that, although i never grew any of them in hydro so i have no basis for comparison. since pretty much all the girls have it, i tend to think it's not nute-related -- most nute problems i've ever had are more pronounced in certain areas of the room (ie toxicities show up in the first 10 plants i water, deficiencies show up in the last 10, that sort of thing).
beansly, as far as the nitrogen toxicity, while i'm not ruling it out altogether, i kind of doubt it. here's why:
a) we grow in mostly unamended soilless mix, and the amendment we do use only has trace amounts of amino-form N -- certainly not enough to cause toxicity at the END of the flowering cycle.
b) the claw only became pronounced when we started tapering nutes moving towards flush, and hasn't improved with the cessation of nutes; nitrogen is the next most mobile element after the Big 3 (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen) -- toxicity tends to be fleeting (in the case of bottled nutes anyway) and should at the very least have shown improvement during flush, which it hasn't so far.
c) the dark green you see is the start of the "fall colours" joedank and i have been talking about; as the plant slows down chlorophyll production, it ups its anthocyanin (red/purple) production, and the resulting transition stage is a darker green that eventually segues into purple. mr kitty doesn't like to start flushing until he sees signs of senescense beginning.