I don’t even bother letting my water sit over night. I just add the mega crop and alter the ph. Plants seem to love it. 
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This is a fun question and there is no wrong answer here.
I think that a well aerated soil / soiless medium is the easiest. It is how I started and it was dead simple.
I used something like 40-45% wormcastings, 40-45% (super small - a little over perlite size) expanded clay (perlite should work) 10% vermiculite (not more). And just water and wormcastings tea. They always needed a bit of magnesium at some point.
As aparently nobody use this recipe anymore (was popular at early OG days, trust me), perhaps better to use other great advices posted here.
I plan to in 2019 do a super easy/newbie friendly grow style, planing to create a thread to start the discussion about it, just getting as much information as I can before to do it properly.
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Do you like to tinker and micro-manage? or are you prone to forgetting and letting it be?
Or somewhere inbetween?
If you like to tinker, get into hydro.
If you like to LITFA, go soil.
Somewhere inbetween? Coco. Or other soilless.
I have grown in dirt, and in coco so far. I like both. Problems are easier to fix in coco, but it requires a little more vigilance.
When getting back into growing from a 12-year break, I went with dirt. But that didnt last, next two are in coco and dwc. I plan on going full dwc because fluid handling is easier than dealing with a medium for me. YMMV
Happy’s $0.02
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Excellent summary.
One other super simple, cheap option for easy hydro is hempy buckets. Hard to beet them for stupid simple setup.
For ANY grow, you are still going to need to be able to measure PH reasonably accurately.
In soil, you can get by with drops. They will get you in the ball park.
For hydro, you really need a half decent PH meter. Thats going to set you back $40-$70 for one that is reliable, accurate and stays calibrated. Dont get sucked in by the $10-$15 ones on Ebay or Amazon. They are crap.
If you use something like Mega Crop as a nute, you can get by without an EC/TDS meter. You just need to be able to measure weights to the nearest gram, so you need a small fairly accurate scale. On the other hand, an EC meter will make hydro much easier to control and manage.
Hydro, and even soil growing can sound complex and difficult when you are first starting out, but its really not that bad if you are prepared.
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Hello again guys,
Thank you so much for all the advice! I cant believe the amount of responses i got in just one day!
This has definitely given me something to think about, originally i was thinking hydro, then soil as i heard it was easier… now im back on the fence! haha
Im planning on buying my tent & equipment within the next couple weeks (just got to wait for pay day! 
), by then i would have read some more on here & will hopefully be able to make a decision!
I think to start i may use soil, see how that goes, move onto a medium like coco for the next cycle then finish with a hydro set up if i can find one for a decent price, then depending on results go from there & stick with what i like the best.
Tbh i was thinking of attempting the SCROG (screen of green) method to start with, that way i can use a smaller tent (will be in the loft) as need it to be hidden away. This method looks great… but im about to make a new thread on this to find people opinions.
Anyway thanks again guys, cya on the forums soon & i cant wait to get started!
Cheers
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Use soil for one or two grows, the switch to hydro,
Soil is much more forgiving.
Btw: don’t waste too much money on fancy fertilizers. Most of it is a rip off.
Start with standard Lucas formula.
After you have tweaked some plants to death you’ll know what I mean.
It’s tempting, though. I know 
That totally depends on what nutes (if any) you are running.
I don’t test pH at all.
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Sounds like you are lucky then. I cant count the number of threads Ive read where plant problems were traced back to a PH imbalance that was causing some sort of nute lockout or poor growth in general.
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Most nutrients you buy are ph stable and don’t require you to adjust the ph at all. Mega crop in regular tap water has my ph sitting stable at 6.3 without mega crop it’s 7.5 ish. I do own and use a ph tester just to be 100% sure but I also like to keep the ph hovering around 6.0 in my bubblers so I add a couple of drops of ph down
None of the nutes Ive tried - including Mega Crop - are able to even come close to controlling the PH of my well water. It starts out at anywhere from 6.7 to 7.5 or so depending on how much rain we have had. Adding Mega Crop, or any other nute, does not even begin to lower it.
I have to add a lot of PH down, and then it comes back up again by the next day and I have to add more PH down. After that, it will only raise slowly.
Turns out my well water has issues that resist lowering the PH. Any aeration, agitation, etc causes the PH to climb rapidly. I can leave a jug of tap water sitting and the PH is stable. If I shake it up for a few seconds, it climbs at least 1/2 a point in PH almost instantly. If I let my rez sit with no pumps or aeration, the PH will hold fairly stable, but turn on a circulation pump or air pump and it jumps up by a point or more in no time at all.
Right now, Im running an HPA system. I am having to PH my rez down to 4.6-4.7 so that the water coming out of the nozzles is at 5.7-5.8. If I get the rez stable at 4.6, the water in the accumulator tank will be at around 5.0-5.1. The action of pumping it into the tank raises it that much. Then when it gets sprayed through the nozzles, it climbs even more.
If I didnt have, and use a PH meter, I would have no clue what was going on in my hydro or my soil grows - which was exactly what was happening early in my first soil grow. I was seeing issues with the plants, so I would increase or decrease the feeding schedule, change lights, heat, etc etc etc. It wasnt until until I got a meter and started to check PH that I got things stable.
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Yes I am lucky. My tap water is some of the best in Canada and my nutes don’t require any dicking around. Just follow the instructions and LITFA.
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One thing to remember is that plants have been growing fine for forever in soil without the aid of humans.
If you put a plant in soil then, as it is your first time, I would expect 30-50% of the numbers that established growers get. Less if you compare it to more advanced systems and methods.
If you put a plant in hydro then, as it is your first time, I would expect either 0% or 60% but nothing in between. If you make a mistake in hydro then you could go to bed with plants that look fine and you could wake up with plants that are dead.
This can affect how much you can learn from a crop. You could spend five crops, and 10 months, killing plants before you learn enough to not make any fatal mistakes for over four months. Or you could get a decent result the first time and build from there if you start with a system that works closer to what is found in nature.
Whichever you choose to do, keep asking questions here. Post pictures of weird leaves, or odd plants, or anything you want to know about and someone will be able to help.
EDIT :
Wow, that is very reactive! Have you thought about sending some off to a lab so you can find out what is in it?
I would be tempted to run that through an RO unit.
What is the PPM of your well water?
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I agree with this 100%. OG is the best community I have seen as far as people being willing to help.
I would also add to post your PLANS for the build/grow BEFORE you start, and especially before you spend any money.
Of course, be prepared to get lots of conflicting advice - just like you are seeing in this thread. If you do enough reading on different forums, you will discover that there are many, many, very different ‘best practices’ when it comes to growing weed. Almost as many as there are growers 
Your memory must not be any better than mine 
We went over this in detail not too long ago
@Northern_Loki found a link that explains it very well. Turns out its a common problem for pool guys.
http://www.anotherperfectpoolnews.com/wp-content/uploads/Tech_Talk/onbalance_ks_co2inwater.pdf
It most likely has to do with dissolved CO2 and carbonates in the water. This can be a problem even with water that has a very low EC/PPM. In my case, my well water is normally in the 80 PPM range, but can sometimes get up to around 200, but thats rare.
In any case, getting back to the original point, with out a decent PH meter, I would have had no clue what was wrong with my grow, or even had any clue that there was something wrong.
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I am afraid it is not, hehe. I had an inkling we had.
I will post the recent PH related things I have learned in the other thread.
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Excellent! I am looking forward to seeing what you have come up with.
Its the start of rainy season here - well, more rainy then summer anyway - so my water is changing. It seems to be getting slightly more stable - maybe. It would help if I was better at keeping notes and took readings more often.
Now that Im doing HPA with drain to waste, and not circulating the rez, its much more a set and (almost) forget kind of thing. I like that a lot
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