Color quartz or swimming pool filter sand?

[Sonny Disposition]

I wasn't sure where to post this. Anyway, I'm (once again) thinking through re-doing my only show tank, the 65 gallon high. I've been keeping the Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus in it. They're really nice, slow growing and (so far) fairly peaceful little sand sifters from Uruguay. I've got only about a half inch or so of swimming pool filter sand in the tank now, left over from when I had a big central rock reef for Mbuna.

A couple of years or so ago, a NANFA member published an article in the club's quarterly publication, on adapting the live sand tank from Marine to fresh water. He used play sand, mixed with a little sand from a local creek, amped up the filtration, and jammed it full of native species.

I'm planning to adapt the idea to my Gymnogeos. The Gymnogeos already help to keep the surface of the sand bed clean. I'm thinking one or two more species of bottom dwellers that rustle through the tank will fit the bill. (Something that isn't possible, for the most part, with native species.) I've already got three yo yo loaches. I'm planning to add some Corydoras paleatus. To keep the sand bed from getting too packed and trapping gasses, I'm planning to periodically add a portion of blackworms. (Over time, the fish will feed on them and deplete the population. But still a good alternative to MTSs, I think.)

I figure a couple of inches or so of substrate--not too much. Plants will largely be crypts and maybe some Potomac River val.

So, given this description, which would you recommend--sticking with swimming pool filter sand, or switching to the S grade of Color Quartz?

-Which could be most easily moved about by the tank residents, yet not cloud the water?

-Which would be the best for bacterial colonization?

-Which is best for plant growth?

-Which requires the least maintainance?

Thanks again.