Generally I try to stay within a 5.5-6.5ph range in Hydro. I use a DWC with dripper setup when I run mine (It's down right now due to lack of time and space, and I am storing a lot of my Army Buddies furniture and odds and ends for him while he's gone that kind of took over my room).
Make sure you use either RO or good filtered water, and if it is filtered tap water like I use, make sure you put a bubbler in it and let it sit for at least overnight to get the chlorine out of it. When I first started in Hydro I had huge problems because I didn't know about the Chlorine issues.
As far as EC level, that really depends on what your plants want. Some are hungry bastards that love to be fed hot, and some will croak with just a slight overfeed. It'll be trial and error for a bit until you figure out what they are happiest with. I personally have never found a use for going much past 900ppm in my tank. That is the water PPM plus the Nute PPM combined (Tap water will have a higher PPM where as RO is at 0. My tap water last time I ran things was around 350-400ppm by itself).
I get great production at that rate, and no goofy Nute tastes added. When I ran hotter, my maters had a really bitter strange taste to them.
I have other friends that feed much hotter, and while they also get good production they have to deal with Stress and Burn issues with some plants, and I can taste it when they really push them.
I'd also recommend 2 products to use. Hygrozyme, and Rhizotonic. I've had great results using those to products over some of the other similar ones from other makers. I also use 2 part Nute mixes instead of 1 part, and I mix them slowly. I get a lot less sediment and a lot more stable solution that way. Not near as many PH swings as I did when I ran single bottle nutes like "EarthJuice".
Good luck man, and seriously, don't get upset when you kill a bunch of plants at first. It's gonna happen until you learn what they want, and what exactly to do to them. Most important thing is just to give them daily attention, and when adjusting PH levels in your tank do it gradually so you don't shock them or burn the roots that are sitting under your filling hole. I destroyed a couple of plants once when I added to much PH up at one time. The roots under the fill hole literally died overnight from it, and I lost some awesome peppers I got seeds from down in Antigua that had a very sweet but hot taste to them.
Also, Make sure to cut out any dead leaves from the plants so you don't get mold growing. Mold sucks when it happens, and it can happen really easily inside even if you aren't growing in a sealed chamber. Don't work in an outdoor garden first and then come into your indoor garden either. Bad Juju and a guarantee of getting diseases and pests on your indoor crops.
