Sinking Pellets and pebbles

I have sand in my tank at the moment and have recently started feeding
sinking pellets rather than flakes, and they sit nicely on top of the sand.

I will be upgrading to a bigger tank soon (probably a Juwel rekord 70 or 96)
and am unsure about having sand as I am concious of it being sucked in to
the filter (my current filter isn't powerful enough to do this).

Just thinking though that I would like to go for pebbels rather than gravel
(as has been discussed on here recently) but I presume the sinking pellets
would just slip through and become unreachable at the bottom of the tank.

Am I right about the sand being sucked up?

Any advice?

Cheers

Andrew