Yeah it's puny alright. Your friend musta had the crappiest dirt ever. A month??!! Let it get established in your bubbler and build some root mass. I'd say ( and I'm new at hydro ) keep PPM around 3-400 til it's happy, get the light close to it and veg it for at least three weeks. Hard to tell if it;s a girl yet but after at least two more weeks it outta show better. I'm guessing yes after lookin at the pic close up. Keep PH around 5.5-5.8. Looks healthy minus the age .

ya way jumping the gun, a plant cant preflower till its mature enough, youve just got growth of new leafs

I dunno...I wouldn't say that's TERRIBLE for a month from seed. It was probably just about to take off. It'll go NUTS in the bucket once roots get going.

When you should flower depends on you and a lot of other things. how big do you want it? What kind of light? how much room do you have?...

Once it's a little bigger (or right now) you should take a cutting off it to keep as a mother (hope its a female).
Once that mother can handle it take cuttings off it to flower. You should be able to have a plant or two rooted and vegged, ready to flower when this one is ready.
Of course you need another (veg) room to do all that...and...you might already KNOW all that.

Good luck

im just hoping it survives, its still alive now 12 hours later. got a fan blowing on it been keeping the PH dialed in right at 5.8.

no new root growth or anything, the leaves are curling a little bit not sure why

i did the same befor and it took awile for the new roots to start and start growing again rvd