I hope you don't mind, but I saved your pic of your tank and played around a bit with paint to see what you could do to make it flow together.. OK, I guess I'm having fun with it too!
Ou, I like it! We have an artist in the making here!
From my research, if I do this, looks like I'll pick up some Pool Filter Sand Grain #20, probably tan color if they have it.
So for design, do you think wrapping it around the left and not running along the entire front (as you have it) would be more appealing than just a few inches wide running the entire length of the tank?
Water changes will be different yeah From what I hear though, sand isn't that hard - basically you just hold your gravel vac just over the surface of the sand, and then run your fingers through it to get rid of any gases that have built up. Do you have gravel or sand?