The Puffer Forum

Whats the best way to clean your sand without sucking it up?

Stir with your hand or a stick & skim the surface with a siphon, after the debris settles.

for FW planted and SW marine you don't / shouldn't stir the sand too much if at all. Otherwise, yea but let the siphon hover over the surface or drag it fairly quickly.

There are a few good vids on youtube that show the procedure.

mind posting one?

Do a search.

what I have found is that you can get the siphon that hooks up to a tap remove the large plastic part that normally agitates the gravel and just use the hose which will create more suction and make cleaning the sand a bit easier so you have to hold the tube just above the sand. Make sure you put the water on your tap as full as you can put it, with out over filling or creating a mess with water having it splash everywhere. Sometimes my tap likes to leak and spray water all over so I just drape a cloth over it to prevent this . I find it inevitable that you will suck up some sand, I put filter floss where the hose drains to catch the sand and just throw this out to avoid putting the waste you just removed back in to your aquarium. This is just a personal preference but I stir the sand with a bamboo chop stick (mind you not to vigorously)this will release gases (i see bubbles every time i do this not sure what they are but am sure they are better out then in) I have seen that Fluval now has a hand held cleaner but can not say that this is good or bad as I have never tried. I have also read that you can use a turkey baster I think that may also be an effective way to clean your sand.
This is the down fall of using sand as a substrate. Note to people who will differ in what I say I am not saying this is the only way or even the right way but this has worked for me. like always I love to learn new and time saving ways to help me spend less time cleaning and more time enjoying my tank if you have any by all means I am all ears