Help! Flowering unfamiliar strain...

Hey guys, I'm a new member and first time grower, this is also my first post. I got some seeds from a bag of "Brass Monkey" supposedly it's a hybrid, and it was an outdoor strain when I got the bag of bud with seeds. I've been growing them for about a month and a half, they are 16 inches tall, and only barely starting to begin to look bushy. I'm using a pioneer IV jr T5 light, and I'm wondering when I should switch the light cycle, I've heard of people doing it at 6 inches, but I also hear that the more mature the plant is the better the bud. My plants still look pretty scrawny right now, is it because they might be a long growing outdoor strain? I have 5 plants under a 4 bulb fixture pushing 96 watts total, putting out 7000 lumens cause I have some extra supplemental lighting as well. I'll answer any questions you guys have to help you help me out. Thanks in advance.

The temps stay between 80 and 85, and I run like a 16/8 light cycle I started with 24/0, then at 2 weeks went to 18/6, and just a few days ago switched it to 16/8. My plants still haven't showed sex so I'm a bit worried and curious. I've been watering with miracle gro singles, and just started fish emulsion today to up the nitrogen due to what I think is slow growth.

Depends on how tall you want it...The longer you veg the higher the yield theoretically. Im on my first grow and just switched to flowering at 42 days, plants were ranging from 12 inches to 22 inches. I think you could switch it at any time if you wanted, I would definately stay away from miracle grow nutes. I use miracle grow soil and it is alright but definately not the best. You also might want to consider picking up a few 23 watt 2700k cfls for flowering

they will bush out during flower when the stretch happens. My advice would be to start 12/12 cfl dont penetrate good and these will prolly finish about 32-36 inches tall with over an oz. Now Id also recomend pruning the bottom of the plant. Id say 2-4 stalks removed starting from very bottom of plant. seems like your going to lose bud but the plants energy will focus on every other bud sight and youll end up with bigger better buds. I remove bottom 2 bud sights on bottom 2 stalks as well in second week of flower My bud size increased big time with this method. Hope I helped bro good luck.

Whoa, if I chopped 2 stalks I would only have 6 branches... When I said they looked scrawny I meant it. These bastards were leggy, even now only 1 is starting to look bushy, 13 sets of leaves, the others only have 8 sets or so, I would be chopping off half the branches if I did 4. What do you guys think about topping? I heard that makes them get bushier, it kind of sounds like reverse topping... I think I'm gonna veg for a while longer cause I want the more mature buds, and I would like bigger buds as well. Plus I heard forcing them into flowering gives you more of a chance of hermes.