Here's an update finally, and some long overdue pics.
it's day 35 for the new batch, the nice and healthy one is still looking great and has grown a LOT. it's now about 6" tall and 7" wide and one of the smaller ones that i figured wouldn't do much growing, has actually grown to near the size of the bigger one, about 5" by 6".
The really big one from the first attempt is much larger now, although a lot of that is just height, but it's still doing great. and i've topped it so it branches out, which i should have done earlier but it's not a big deal. it's about 15" tall and 10" wide. and if i did my math right, i think it's about 68 days old now.
The biggest one is now in 12/12 and on it's 8th day of flowering. oddly enough, it actually smells less since going into flowering, but i'm sure that will change soon enough.
no signs of sex yet, but i don't expect to see anything till week 2 at least.
I'm going to be putting the rest into 12/12 tonight. i'm afraid they may not be big enough but it'll have to do, as i need to harvest them by about 8-10 weeks from now.
i'm very satisfied with 3 big and healthy plants, and hopefully i get a female out of one of them. i would like some bud to smoke, but if not then at least i got the experience. plus anything these yield is pretty much free bud so i won't be complaining even if i don't get much.
all in all, everything's looking good so far, and i'm really looking forward to seeing what i get as far as gender goes, so we'll see in a couple weeks.