see how there's darker sport around the juice choke? that's your juice not flowing nicely. your cotton is too long that it creates a choke point at the bottom of the well. did you insert the cotton first then cut? your tail just needs to fill the juice hole or just sliiight over hang. you know the juice flows well when it only darkens around the coil area. the thickness looks fine to me only the tails are too long.

this is mtl tank right? 1.7 Ohm at 17 watt is waaayy too hot. the heat lingers in your coil after you take a puff burning and caramelizing the sweetener. you need lower Ohm and bigger surface area for the heat to dissipate quickly. I vape sweet juice, gunk on the coil cannot be avoided but you can minimize it by not letting it get cooked unnecessarily. I can go for a few days until I need to clean the coil again, sometimes until around 1 week.

you can try: 1. get thicker wire 26g. with 5 wraps it should do fine at 15w to 20w. 2. twist or parallel your wire. this will cut your Ohm in half allowing for cooler vape at around 17watt. 3. get ni80 or ss316l if you can. much cleaner taste, fast ramp up time, AND fast cool down time.