i started with soil had poor luck , went to hydro( flood tables) learned lots with great results . now im doing some in soil to gain the Exp. too bad you are giving up on hydro , its very ez . although one table i flowerd for 35 days with very poor growth had no idea what was wrong , until something very simple ... my tri meter that was suppose to be factory calibrated wasnt . so i would set Ph at 5.5 but really i was 5.0 . off by .5(x50) so something so small made a whole difference, maybe you overlooked something in your situation .my res tank was mixed with RO water and 2 part nutes thats it , weak ppm at start and wait till plants eat ppm down then put in more nutes week by week and correct ph ,just throwing that out there . good luck