anyone with tank with sand thinking of going bb probably have problem with the sand (e.g. dirty, hard to clean, sand blowing around, etc). otherwise if there is no problem with the sand, then just keep it as is. as someone mentioned, the whole point of going bare bottom is the ease to keep the bottom clean, higher flow, etc. There is no point arguing having sand looks better, as bb will look better than any tank with dirty unlcean sand.