I am growing lettuce under a 400 watt MH with a reflector and a glass cover on the enclosure. 4 feet seems a little far up though. I think you could safely move it down to about 2 feet. A good rule of thumb is to use your hand a a guide for how close to move your light source. Since lettuce likes a cooler environment, just make sure that your hand doesn't feel hot at the top of the plants. Gentle warmth should be ok. Would love to see some pics...

I actually changed my reservoir to rain water 3 days ago (4-17-10) and have noticed a significant change in the plants color/health. The instructions given by general hydroponics for their maxigrow product says to use 1-2 teaspoons per gallon of water. I went with 1.5 teaspoons per gallon of rain water and noticed that my E.C. was only .71 and my TDS was only 490. Previously, using a more conservative feeding, somewhere around 1 teaspoon per gallon of municipal, water my E.C. was 1.50 and my TDS was 1050? That seems like a lot of salts already in the municipal water? (Remember, my water is desalinated, I live at the beach.) I'm hoping the water switch is the change my plants need to thrive. Do I need to adjust my feeding e.c. and tds up to the maximum feeding recommended by G.H. for "fast growing/heavy feeders" or should I follow the plants demands by watching the numbers and only adjust upwards if the plants seem to be consuming the nutrients rapidly? Here are a few shots of the plants as of this morning (4-17-10)

iceman_1000000 Sorry for the delayed reply, I have been very distracted with other things lately. So are you saying I shouldn't cut off the first blooms? I should just let them start the fruiting process? I'm saying you can do what you want. I like to eat the fruit, so I let them do just that. Does that mean you think I should actually try to pollinate them at this point? I'll need to check for sure, but I believe strawberry are self pollinating. Although they can benefit from help of air currents and pollinating insects to produce better well shaped fruit. I was just concerned the plant was too small to support the load of the berries. I didn't realize they would flower while the plant was so small. That's what always amazes me. People are often so surprised when the plants start to flower when their still small. Tomato's, strawberry's, peppers, melons, cucumbers, etc. all do the same thing. Their called continuously flowering/fruiting plants. That means that they flower/fruit from the beginning of their life, tell the end of it (thus the term "continuously"). They don't wait to mature before they begin flowering/fruiting. That always seems to thorough people for a loop when they actually discover/see it for themselves. Should I have started them out on bloom nutrient from the beginning that way they could start producing fruit immediately? If their flowering, their producing fruit. Use any nutrient type you want (bloom/veg), they will still want to flower/fruit (their continuously flowering/fruiting plants). Blooming nutrients only help the possess of fruiting. That's why I say it' depends on what you want, leaves or fruit. I prefer eating fruit, but that could just be me. If they want to fruit I'll help and let them, then eat the fruit (I just don't tell the plants the part about eating their fruit). Likewise should I have started them on on 2700k lighting instead of 6500k lighting? Unless you overkill it, get rid of the florescent lighting. Florescent lighting is fine for low light requirement/tolerant plants like lettuce, but wont provide enough light for good fruit production, unless you provide tones of it. Also, any ideas on why some of my older leaves are looking a little brown at the edges? Would that be a nutrient deficiency? Any way I could tell what kind? That's also another paranoia that many new growers seem to have. First the older growth will always tend to turn color and brown. Especially on strawberry plants, and even on ones that small. But even more so the bigger they get. It's best to trim off the older growth as it browns/dies. But there is a couple things that could be a problem (though I cant tell from the pictures). One is the water level, the second is humidity and air circulation. High water levels can lead to stem rot, and is typicality first noticed as discoloration (browning or yellowing) of the bottom leaves. High humidity and low air circulation can lead to fungal disease. Especially on plants like strawberry's and tomato's that don't like wet foliage. Other than the first picture (and that's to early to tell anything from it), your strawberry plants look good to me. How do the roots look? Nice and white I'm guessing?

Thy here: Here is a link that might be useful: Hydro nutrition