Gravel / Choice Of Substrate?

I've noticed in the gallery that black gravel is very popular,can I ask what everyone is using?

In the past I always used gravel,is sand easy to clean?

I have sand in most of my tanks, mainly because most of my tanks have cories in them.
My dwarf puffer tank and tiger barb tank both have gravel, but I'm planning to change them to sand as I do find the sand easier to clean.
I tend to clean the sand the way that Sue has described, with just the hose part of the syphon, but I do have to be careful with some of my more inquisitive fish as they can sometimes get very close to the hose.
I've used various brands of sand, but mainly Unipac and Sansibar brands.

I use sand and always have done since going tropical. Mine is beige-coloured sand (Unipac Tana sand) but, in retrospect, I probably ought to have opted for black sand as that is usually recommended for the type of fish I have and might emphasise their colours more too.

I used gravel in my goldfish-keeping days. However, one instance too many occurred of gravel getting stuck in the fishes' throats, regardless of size of gravel tried. I converted to sand for one of my fish but this caused the fish to ingest the sand, leaving a large marking/pouch on the side of the fish where the sand was and causing the fish to do very thick, sand-filled poo. Subsequently, I converted to a bare-bottomed tank.

Cories' barbels are said to do better with sand than gravel; however, I know of one member of this forum (RichardW) who has had no problems with cories on gravel substrate.