this'll be fun. I'm just finishing a northern lights x shiva grow, hey. you don't need to use distilled water if you don't want.

as for soil don't get anything with much fertilizer already in it. these can burn young plants, and also make it harder for you to gauge what you are giving your plants. you want your soil to have good drainage, so you want your soil mix to be around 40% perlite. many soils come with a little, you might have to get some extra perlite. also you might want to mix in some dolomite lime to buffer your soil's ph.

good luck!