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The day you change your light to 12/12, all your plants should be growing hard, and still have some room to stretch, because that's what they are about to do! As soon as you "give the signal", they're all racing for home, and looking for a man, and they may stretch as much as 18 inches! About a week into flowering, the plants will start to show sex.  The females will usually show first, by sending up a little "V" shaped flag at the crotch of each node on the branches which will multiply into what looks like a bunch. Males will show a little later, but suddenly- so eye with suspicion any plants who appear to be not showing anything. The male flowers look like little round clusters in the shape of dangling balls hanging at the crotch (where else?) of the branches just like the females. You must look very carefully to find them, (told you that Magnifying glass would come in handy) they are harder to see than the females, who after a while will be quite obvious. When you find the males, there are a couple of courses of action you might take. You can kill them, or you can separate them from the females, wait until they mature and save the pollen for pollinating a single branch. (for seed supply) Well, it's confession time. the trouble I have with this phase of growing is that it always seems to take SO LONG!! My patience gets stretched to the max and it becomes impossible not to pinch some "to test it" or for that "bad cold" or whatever convoluted reason my overactive imagination can think up. So I think I've got the plan that'll work. Choose one plant which will be your "tester plant" and leave the others alone. The molested plant never grows as far as her untouched sisters, and that way you can test when you feel the "need" and not do what I have done, and ruin your entire crop. The rule of thumb here is actually DON'T pick off the fan leaves, as the plant needs them all to supply food to the buds you are trying to grow. Only take leaves that are already yellowing and nearly dead. Also, grow enough plants so that occasional "grazing" won't hurt the overall output of your garden. Kill the fan leaves, choke off the buds. It's a matter of common sense, and patience.