I doing my first grow myself and im using a deep water system. You could make one out of a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. The roots just hang down into the nutrient water, and there's an aerator in the bucket, this keeps the roots from rotting and just flat out makes the plants grow like hell.

My biggest plant is 23.5 inches tall with a very fat stem and its been in the deep water system under a 400 watt HPS for 25 days. It was a 2-3 inch sprout when I put it in the system.

The only problem i've had is I was getting stem rot on some of my plants because the plugs were getting splashed too much from the aerator. I've lowered the water level and i'm pretty sure i've take care of that problem.