Recirculating DWC 1st grow/journal 8x Skywalker OG. Criticize and Advise Please! PICS

Booyah! I am finally attempting my first Bubbleponics grow using Recirculating DWC model based on blazeoneup's from icmag. It has been a HUGE journey, from dealing with many MANY leaks, enormous amounts of plumbers putty and goop and to sickly clones that have been sitting to long in rockwool cubes! Anyways I am new at this and would LOVE any advice in helping me with my new grow.

Gear: Sun Systems Air Cooled Reflector with 600 watt Hilux Ushiro HPS powered by a 600 watt 120v HPS/MH Galaxy Digital Ballast. DIY Reflector w/ 400 watt Sylvania HPS powered by DIY 450 watt HPS Magnetic Ballast.

RDWC System Specs: 265 GPH Water Pump, 110L Active Aqua Air Pump, 17 gallon Controller with Float Valve, 17 Gallon Reservoir, 9 5 gallon Lowe Buckets, 6 in Net Pots. Large Round Air Stones in all buckets and Controller. 3/4 in tubing to buckets, 1/2in feed lines.

*Vegging* Nutrients for 40 gallon System: Using Bottled Wal-Mart water. 1st Week Feed.
135ml GH Grow
90ml GH Micro
45ml GH Bloom
50ml Botanicare Sweet
100ml Botanicare Calmag

Clones: 8 Skywalker OG about 8-12in tall when received as a gift, in Rockwool Cubes. Keep for 3-4 WEEKS before implanted into RDWC system! sat under 250 Watt CFL on clone tray in my frickin CLOSET!

Day 1: Light Level 14 inches from the top of tallest plant. 9:41 p.m. PH 5.8, PPM: 470, Water Temp 64*F, Temp Under Lights 71.6*F 31%RH. Last Night air pump came loose from the metal air splitter thingy for about 10 hours! Good thing my kind mother informed me early this morning about the situation.

Problems!: Plants looked "nute" burned to me when they were in the rockwool some of the leaves looked shriveled and crunchy. i also have a problem with un even water levels on one side of the rows. I compensated this by adding an extra layer of hydroton to keep the water level of all plants relatively the same height, I heard that this is because the pump is feeding lines to quickly before it can drain but its a 265gph pump and draining through 3/4 tubing, the pump is adjustable but im not sure how and it doesn't have anything for me to know how many gph im doing! i would like any advice on the health of the plants, as well as anything you can see that could be improved i.e. Nutrients. I do plan on tomorrow going to the hydro store and picking up some hygrozyme. Also should I stick a 450 MH bulb in the DIY Reflector? instead of having a 600hps and 400hps, id have a 600hps and replace the *current* 400hps with a 450MH. or should i just stick with HPS for Vegging? Also how can I convert the PPM to EC?

Hey sboonjue! nice set up you got going +rep. I'm working on my first RDWC too ,but only two plants. I had the same problem with the control bucket water level due to the feed line feeding more water than the 3/4" return could handle . I did mine the same way with 1/2" feed and 3/4 return so.... I solved it with a return feed line back to the control, but you could get a smaller pump too. I would stick with the MH for vegging and HPS for flowering. I also had problems with the 400w light being to close to the plants I had it at about 12" and moved it up to about 30" to give them a break and this morning they looked much better. You could check out my grow to see if you find anything that could help you. Don't take my word on anything I'm a noob. I can't help you on the ec I use ppms but I'm sure some of the more experienced grower will stop by and help. Happy grow