well done MDJ, still here and reading and following all the trials and tribulations of the Irish, wish I knew more about hydro and could comment more but hydro is a strange new world for me.
its actually very easy, easier than soil and faster with bigger buds if you do it right and if you use the lucas method u only use flora micro and flora bloom but you do need a ph meter that has water temp gage as well and a ppm meter but you can get good ones for cheap. If you do ebb & flow like I am and use rockwool its like a combination of soil and hydro.
the only problem with hydro is if you have a problem you need to fix it pretty quick but if you know what you are doing and do some research on hydro and the system you are using you will figure it out in time and the plants will bounce back in a few days, I had a plant on this run that looked almost dead and now its the healthiest one and now I have two doing not so well but I figured the problem out, I hadn't calibrated my ph meter in months so it was way off, when I thought it was reading 5.8 it actually was reading 4.0 so I recalibrated it and flooded the ladies which made the not so good ones droop but fixed the others and the two will bounce back they are already doing better.
once you get everything you need for hydro its cheap and you don't have to lug around soil and get rid of it after each run where as with hydro you just throw out the water and the rockwool cubes or rewash the hydroton pebbles.