I love the look of sand and fact that it creates an environment for all sorts of little critters to live in, but I'm very much of the opinion that recreating a 'natural' sand ecosystem in a teeny tiny little box is considerably more difficult than simply adding lots more of it than people usually do for visual appeal. As my tank has aged (between 1-4 inches of sand depending on what the powerbeads have done), all the problems I've seen with algae have started in the sand. I think they really do become clogged up with nasty stuff. Which makes sense - would you ever maintain a canister filter and never ever clean the foam?
I've recently decided to start fluidizing the sand to get some of that gunk out on a semi-routine basis, and so far it appears to be accomplishing what I want it to do (cyano has stopped growing back on the patches that I've fluidized) I would still not run a tank without it. The look of coraline covered glass is not something I enjoy.
We'll see if my new strategy solves more problems than it creates long term.
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