I saw an interesting thread somewhere not too long ago, (maybe on RC). Anyway, the guy had cut plexiglass the size of the bottom of his tank. He sprayed styrofoam (the safe kind) onto the plexiglass and shaped it into little ridges and hills. Then while it was still wet he covered it with a very thin layer of sand, small pieces of rock, etc. When dry, he placed it on the bottom of the tank and then aquascaped with live rock and corals. It looked quite realistic and had none of the problems that comes with DSB. It is like having a BB tank but looks like it has a DSB. He just blows the detritus up into the water column. I'm seriusly considering this when I set up my 225 FOWLR.
I have coarse sand and crushed coral in my 90 gal reef; about 2-3 inches deep. There are things I like and don't like about it. It's easier to keep in place than the finer sand, but IMO doesn't look as good as the fine stuff. The 90 is 9 months old so I haven't really had any issues yet. I give it a bit of a stir from time to time and that's about it.
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