There will be some black slate, with orange lines running through it sitting on metal stands running up the entire height of the tank and will hopefully look like the lake when finished, the orange is a match for the colour of kids play sand that will be on the bottom, to help all the sand dwellers to dig pits etc, there is also a sand ledge half way up for featherfins and any other mid or shallow water fish to breed and display and a shelf for shell dwellers to have their colony and keep them out of the way of my Emperor Cichlid group, as for cleaning I have 4 x 4500lph pumps set up to send hopefully all the muck into one corner for collection, the sand should stay free from problems with all the sand sifters doing their job. I plan doing water changes every week , I have 2 @ 6ft high x 2ft dia plastic water tanks filled with HMA water to change every week, and I will just have to wait and see how the base looks with regard waste, I am thinking about draining maybe 50% - 60% every few months and have a good clean if needed, but I am going to use Ozone, so I am hoping this aids in any detritus build up, but I have never had a tank this big before so its a constant learning curve.