Has anyone tried...?

[SamMule]

Cutting a thin slab of reef safe rock to the exact bottom dimensions of your tank?
If you textured it semi-smooth like a large tile, it might give some interesting visual appeal without the sand mess. As well as surface area for bacteria... And coralline growth!
Just a thought for bare-bottom folks...
Whadya think?

 

[ndrwater]

I used Stax to be the base of my scape in my bare bottom 240.
In theory, your plan would work, just depends on the size of the tank

 

[reefwiser]

Many use frag tiles to do this. That way if you have corals on the bottom of the tank you can remove them if needed. The only issue will be the creation of an Anaerobic area below a full notion of the tank. Since there would be no water movement.

 

[Enchelycore]

I once mixed a bunch of sand with epoxy resin and poured it in to the tank. Looked just like sand and I could crank my wavemakers up. Only problem was algae and coralline eventually started to grow on it and it didn’t look as clean.