The reason I went with no substrate is flow. In my old tank I had constant "sand storms" because of the flow I had in the tank. I had to use a turkey baster to blast sand out of my LR and corals almost daily.
I still use a turkey baster to blow out detritus from my LR, but the sand has since almost disappeared.
You should see how much detritus my LR accumulates. I blast all of my LR weekly(at least I try to) and then use a powerhead to blow it all into the front of the tank. Then I do a 5-10 gal water change to siphon it out. I'm hoping over time that the detritus will start to decline a little.
If I didn't have an SPS dominated reef I would probably go back to a
shallow sand bed. Which would be vacuumned often.
I have never had a DSB, only
shallow sand beds. I miss the natural look that sand brought to my reef, and the reflectivity of white sand but I'll just stick with painting the bottom of my tank flat white.
I don't really understand what your question is, but I thought I'd share some of the reasons why I went with a bare bottom tank.
since an expert in the field says: Furthermore, most corals aren't directly consumng phytoplankton. Seems to me it would be just waste material to be filtered out by whatever it is that you use to keep the water clean.
