People will say dirt or coco, but personally after using everything other than aeroponics, I have found dwc to be the simplest way to grow myself. A bucket, an airpump, an air stone, a netpot, some clay balls and then its all water and nutrients. All I do is add a pre set amount of nutrients to a bucket, and ph check once every 3 or 4 days and that’s it, it really couldn’t be any simpler imho and growth wise there is simply no comparison, again I am sure people will disagree, but I have tried every trick in the book gleaned over decades to outgrow my brothers DWC setup with dirt/coco. I can’t even get close.
Nutrient wise, I just more or less use the ‘lucas formula’ using GH Maxibloom from start to finish at a rate of 1.94 grams per litre with PH at 5.8. Then you get a bottle of PH up and PH down and then along with your trusty PH stick these are pretty much all you need. I NEVER have deficiency issues, only ever PH issues. If you want to see the result of how this works out, check out my mini dwc setup in the current OG 16 OZ comp.
IMHO this is WAY simpler than dirt because there are less variables, they are controllable and they can be changed/adjusted quickly as needed. Also as a really useful bonus, because the roots hang free in a bucket, you get to see directly how they are going and in my experience, all things being equal, a good root system is key to a good yielding plant.
