I love doing hydro as I am a hands on type of person. I love to tinker with stuff and set up stuff to see if it works. If you look at my setup you can see that it is kind of like DWC and kind of drip, and kind of soilless. I initially started with DWC with my bro in the grow-lab but found that to be a bit of a pain for our layout. We tried a few different things then stumbled onto coco and doing a top feed with it. That was when it started working well for us.
It just seemed easier for our layout, but then THG turned me on to using the totes and cutting out holes in the lids so that the planters hang down into the totes. That allowed the plants to extend their roots down into a shallow resevoir without the bottoms of the pots sitting on the bottoms of the totes. We incorporated the use of a large resevoir for multiple totes so that we only have to fill one rez and then all the plants are top fed through the coco and drips down into the shallow rez to return again to the big rez where it is cooled and oxygenated with the airstone.
The thing I like about this setup is that it reduces the evaporation and humidity because all but the top of the soil is covered. I also like that I am able to keep constant control of the nutrient levels, and the coco acts like soil by catching and holding the nutrients for the plant to take in as it wants while the continual feeding/watering continues to buffer the coco for the plant as it takes the nutes out.
The drawbacks of this set up is that all the totes are connected to a central rez which means there has to be constant monitoring of hoses that can come disconnected and pumps that can fail. Then as the plants grow and get heavier, they can push down into the totes and damage the lids, which can lead to the plant eventually leaning or setting on the roots in the bottom (this only happens though if the plants are allowed to get quite big. We solved this by setting small blocks in the bottoms of the totes for the pots to set on).
I am still using this set up in my stealth cabinet grow but have found another drawback is having to elevate the plants so that the main resevoir is below the planter resevoirs for proper drainage. Because of this, I have lost about 15" of growth room in both my tent and cabinet as I am limited to a total height of 7'. However, LST and lower growing plants have kept that from being much of an issue so far.
