Kudos to you for keeping a positive attitude . You may not crank out a ton of top notch buds, but every grow you get under your belt, the more experience and knowledge you gain.
20 yrs ago when I dove into this hobby, I was all about hydro, and I failed miserably. Water was too warm from the HID lighting, light leaks so I had algae blooms, root issues up the ass. I was very discouraged. I went the coco route because yields are higher and its very similar to hydro. I had alot of fertilizer salts I used for my hydro endeavor so coco made sense. I fucked that up too. Had alot of calcium issues. I later come to find out that coco has to be buffered and rinsed of salts.
Once I got a handle on coco and treating it like hydro not soil, I went the organic route with it. I ammend it with humus and rock powders, tons of kelp, soft rock phosphate, alphalfa meal, neem meal, greensand, rice hulls, cocoa bean shells, worm castings. I purchase microbial powders to inoculate the substrate and start using things like yucca root powder, unsulfered blackstrap molasses, coconut water and fresh aloe to mix into my water. And the results were astonishing!!
I don't worry about pH anymore or EC. I feed the microbes and worms, not the plants. They feed the plants and provide a measurable means of defense against root pathogens. I stopped buying into all the hype that these companies pump people up with so they buy the entire line of nutrients. I get hydro results and the flowers are more attractive with color and the terpene level is outta this world. No hydro grow can compete with the quality of organic grown.
Educate yourself with the science of it all and you'll understand how and why this phenomenon we call "mother nature" works flawlessly. I've never looked back, it's a tad more of an investment, but once you have it running in full swing, your expenses drop drastically. Leaves more money for upgrading lights and automating.
