I've been doing hydro about 2 years now, and I find it to be fairly simple. The only problem is you really have to keep up your pH and really have to know what you are doing with the nutes since there is no "buffer" between the nutes and the roots like there is with soil. If you screw up in hydro, you have a much smaller window of time to correct it. If you have trouble with herms, there is a spray by Dutch Masters called "Reverse" that stops male flowers from growing.