The "Law"n in Soil
I'll be honest there are those plants that grow in any type of soil, prospering in drought, and multiplying with abandon, but why?
It's all in the soil! Specifically the 17 macro and micro nutrients found in the soil. Nutrients such as: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, calcium, magnesium are macro nutrients. Micro-nutrients are your iron, manganese, zinc, boron, molybdenum, chlorine, copper, and nickel. Macro nutrients are the higher required amounts of nutrients by the plants. A plant is mostly made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and potassium. However a lot of these main nutrients are exactly found in soil! That's why a lot of the fertilizers you see are made of NPK.
Micro nutrients are mostly found in the soil but when it comes to hydroponics you find the nutrients mostly in solutions. These solutions take the essential elements that plants need to grow in a soluble form.
These nutrients are critical to plant growth and development but unlike soil, water doesn't really have those nutrients. It's the exact opposite of soil and so you feed nutrients straight to the plant(its gotta be liquid)! As I mentioned before about NPK which stands for nitrogen(N), phosphorous(P), and potassium (K) in a soluble/liquid solution. Is a general base for plants to grow. If it says 6-7-4 then there's 6% of nitrogen, 7% of phosphorous, and so forth.
Nitrogen helps with stronger stalks so you might want to look into 20-6-6. Or you might be looking into helping your plants in the blooming season(YES there are nutrients that help in the blooming phase!). You might be looking for nutrients with a high phosphorous like 6-20-6. If you're looking to help the roots grow stronger, you want something that contains a high amount of phosphorous and potassium.
There are organic and synthetic nutrients when you are looking for solutions. Organic solutions are general the better option(made from plant and or animal byproducts like fish). Both have the same volume of nutrients but synthetic nutrients are pre-broken down with a faster release. This also makes it a smoother blend; meaning the solution does contain the possibility of small particles that are found in organic solutions!
In the long run organic solutions are better and there are plenty of options if clogging is a worry. Organic also has less chemicals and chemicals impact the taste/growth of you plant.
A brief Honorary Notion to pH
The picture underneath shows how valuable pH is. Where a lot of the nutrients are optimally absorbed and soluble in certain pH's. Between 5.0 - 7.5 or slight acidity to slight alkalinity is where many plants grow. This is because the general pH of water in nature is 7 but some plants prefer a bit more acidic of a bit more alkaline environment.
