I think you guys are tripping on the hydroton I have been using it 10 years and would use nothing else. I rinse them off real good put all the plants in, and do a res change the next 2 days in a row to get the residual dust off. No problems at all. Ph creep is pretty normal I set mine at 5.8 check on them 2 days later its at 6.2. the only time ph creep is bad is if it goes the other way say from 5.8 down to 5.4 and so on. Normaly that means you have some bad bacteria in the res. a little h202 clears it up. I dont like anything that retains moisture or nutes ie coco, rockwool, dirt you have way more control with a nuetral medium.