IMO, sand is just as good of a substrate as eco-complete, floramax, etc... until you get in to high tech, high light tanks... and even then, those substates do very little. Flourite, OTOH, does provide some benefits over sand, but it clouds up the tank and the least disturbance causes the tank to be cloudy for a few hours IME. I chose to use floramax because of the color, not because of the benefit. Another option that provides a lot of benefit, would be aquasoil and powersand. But, they're quite expensive, and should only be used on new setups, not existing (because they leach ammonia).