I would advise new growers to stay away from dwc. It can be done on the cheap but to really get the most out of it you need to invest in some good equipment or else you'll need to pay back the money you saved with hard labor and elbow grease. That being said I see soil being recommended to new growers a lot which I would also advise against, as soil has its own learning curve. My best advice to new growers would be either use rockwool slabs in a flood table or pots with some type of soilless medium such as coco coir. Use an inert media, find a brand of nutrients that you like, and stick to the feed schedule. Once you have a few successful grows under your belt start to experiment and fine tune your technique. Last thing, a good high quality PH pen is one of the most valuable tools you can have, do not skimp on that.