Reticulating shop vac, Getting the water back in the tank part has been redneck engineered but still working on an easy way to get the sand back into the tank. I guess that's why I have a bare bottom tank!!!!

I'm seriously considering just siphoning off 2" of the sand and letting yet another golden head work on what's left. I love the look of the DSB but it's getting too ugly to maintain and I'm sure that's what's keeping my phosphates high. I have some livestock that depend on the sand bed otherwise I'd consider just going down to the egg crate bottom...

Well spoken! +1 to that ; )

I've wanted to remove my sand many times. It's only there for my two leopard wrasses and I've actually pushed the sand so it's entirely contained in the back middle of my tank so only about half of my tank has a sandbed.

I re-homed my watchman goby and have never had a CUC so some form of sand maintenance is required hence my regular turkey bastings of the sand but some direct removal needs to be added to my routine.

getting a full length siphon tube under my rock tower and past my corals will be tough. I'm going to slice my siphon tube in half to allow for this. If that still doesn't work I'll grab a spatula.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XbCWmY0eqY

i like my sand white and my men dark. I tried to vote but the option for dark was not there. Whats up with that?

I do two things. If there is a lot of detritus buildup I might use something to stir up the sand and then siphon out what comes up. In some cases I just siphon some of the sand right out and depending on how well it rinses clean at the sink I either put it back or just toss it out. Every so often I'll top up with new sand.

Disclaimer: I only do this in my smaller tank. In my larger tank the sand gets shifted around by the pumps and also has a VERY productive diamond goby. If I stir the sand up in there, nothing comes out, it's always clean. I am guessing it is the sand shifting in the current and the goby that is the explanation. Every so often I have to scoop up sand from the back and replace it at the front.

Have you ever tried dark sand? :razz:

Without pics, didn't happen.

Ok, back on track. What was I talking about? Oh ya. Sand. Wayne uses an Eheim vacuum, apparently works well. Since I can't remove sand, I may try this.
I'll leave a bed of sugar sand in the back for the wrasse, but so far really happy with the special grade. It's still where I left it last night.

I also really liked the special grade sand, no sand storms just some random spots that would "dune" but not enough to make it bare in spots. Sand bed was only 1.5-2".

On another note, not sure if it was mentioned here or not but I have also heard of people taking a plastic fork and attaching it to the end of a syphon and raking the sand to lift the detritus which then gets sucked up by the syphon. I have personally never done this but in theory it sounds like a good solution.