While I am no scientist or chemist or marine biologist, I have experience with a wide array of different husbandry techniques, filtration, fuges, macros, miracle mud, mineral mud, southdown, aragonite, dsb, ssb, nsb, etc. Tried it all. Ozone, UV, venturi skimming, mazzei skimming, needlewheel skimming, waterflow, eductor nozzles, seaswirls, etc., etc etc. My cleanest tank was when I did the following, which was on my last tank.
Run 50mg/hr into skimmer of ozone. Run ridiculous waterflow, as much as the bulkheads can drain. Run just enough aragonite to cover the glass, aesthetics only, otherwise I'd have none. Do a 30 gal waterchange weekly. Run 150mg carbon, replaced bi-weekly, purigen, and 200micron filtersocks. When my pumps were turned off my tank looked like there was no water even in it. Every system I set up I improve something from the system before. I also see a lot of systems, many in my area from the local reef club. I listen to advice when I see people with a nicer tank than mine. I dripped kalkwater, and ran a calcium reactor. On my next tank I am putting another sump in where I can grow macroalgae, no sand, just macroalgae. They remove a lot of waste. I am putting in 2 seaswirls to eliminate deadspots, and am landscaping the tank so that there are as few as possible dead water spots. I am also purchasing a new recirculating needlewheel skimmer. I'm not sure if I'm going with the deltec or the H and S, but both will be a vast improvement from what I am currently using.
Now, back to the DSB. In theory a DSB could work, WITH THE RIGHT CRITTERS and RIGHT ENVIRONMENT. I believe for 90% of hobbyists it will not create some magical 4'' deep sand ecosystem like they think they are getting however. The following idea for most hobbyists after this is that they no longer need to do waterchanges. I believe and have seen that for the majority it will create poor growth, poor coloration, and in general a much dirtier tank than is necessary. I bought my tank to view it, I like to clean it as little as possible.
Another sorepoint for me was waterflow with the dsb. The sand/southdown starts blowing everywhere. I love chaotic waterflow, a great thing for your reef. I also disliked the coloration and algae outbreaks everywhere you look.
Bang and the rest if that works for you I am more than happy for you. I am however here to state that my tank has never looked cleaner and ran easier, colored up better, shown better polyp extension, and lost less coral than it has when set up with the proper filtration and maintenanced properly.
