Certainly. When I began my experiments
Starting here I was concerned about having my organic grow mix constantly submerged as is the standard approach with these things. It seems to work fine with peat based mixes but peat is also formed under water in peat bogs over hundreds of years.
My mix is about 2/3rds organic material with most of that being leaf mold and worm castings, neither of which spend any time underwater in their formation. I've also made lots of Jadam water based ferments with various things and I know the absolute stink that can come with submerging plant material in water for any meaningful length of time. Since mine is an indoor grow I absolutely could not have that issue and so thought about ways I could accomplish the wicking properties by other means.
I chose hydroton clay balls as that's what I had on hand from my aquaponics build and was familiar with their wicking properties which is somewhat less than submerged peat or coco which I felt was an advantage in my small 1L pots. I have experienced the perched water table in them and the shorter the container the bigger the problem with it.
Since I ran my early experiments with clear 1L containers, I could see how the soil, roots and water interfaced with each other. What I found with these clay balls in the reservoir was that the soil roots morphed into water roots as they approached the reservoir, splitting and fishboning all over the place which I assumed indicated they were quite happy. And it doesn't take very long before those water roots fully populate that hydroton layer. I think these water roots are an advantage sitting in a pool of water and allow easier access to that water by the plant.
Interestingly, I've seen the pictures from the commercial system Buds is using as well as the pictures of the root ball of his recently harvested plant and in both cases the roots appear to stop just at the reservoir level, not populating the reservoir at all but rather relying on the wicking capabilities entirely.
Whether one approach is better than the other should be the subject of a side-by-side test to see, so at the moment it is just personal preference for me. Intellectually it seems to make more sense to me that the water roots are an advantage but I have no comparative basis for that conclusion. My setup works well for me and I still don't want to unnecessarily submerge my mix in constant water if it's not needed.
I think any inert media like perlite, pumice, sand, maybe even small rivet rock, etc. would likely work similarly to my hydroton.
