Substrate.....or no substrate?

[sharky222]

Hi everyone,

I am a complete newbie -- my 100g tank arrives in a few days. A few more days to troll this site and learn more stuff.....!

The folks at my LFS are strongly of the opinion that it is not necessary to use a substrate of any type, and in fact using a substrate can cause more problems than it is worth. All of their tanks have a bare bottom (so to speak), which doesn't look great, but I am tempted to try this (I found a roll of sand-printed drawer-liner that I'll tape underneath the tank to solve the aesthetic problem!).

Would be curious to know if this is good advice, or not.....does it make sense to start out substrate-free?