My system is sumpless, so water changes are done by removing water from the display. I generally use the siphon to lightly surface vacuum areas that are relatively easy to access. In the corners & areas of low flow, I'll sink the tube down deep into it & a good deal of fine, cloudy, nasty stuff gets disturbed & sucked up. I'll also use the turkey baster to blow off areas of rock that accumulate pockets of sand & detritus. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't caused a mini crash when I do this, but I guess the fact that I'm siphoning most of the nasty stuff up & replacing almost half the water (large water changes infrequently) probably helps.
I should add that my system is a combination of two previously owned tanks & I used all of the original sand & some from the second tank. It was pretty nasty stuff since the tanks did not appear to have a lot of flow with the original owners. Over the past 4-5 years, the appearance of the sandbed has improved noticeably, nice & white these days for the most part. I attribute this to my little spot cleanings during water changes, but also to the increased flow & undertow that my VorTech MP40Ws provide. I've tried sand sifting livestock in the past, a starfish & even a horseshoe crab that came with the second tank I purchased. Both eventually died. My Maroon clownfish female will occasionally work on an area below the BTA the pair is calling home, sometimes fanning the bed right down to the glass. Depth of my sandbed varies with the deeper sections (about 4") at the ends in the corners. Around the middle of the tank, under the BTA rock, it's down to 2" or less, depending on what the female Maroon has been up to. As mentioned earlier, I usually poke the siphon deep in the corners, since that tends to be the low flow area which collects nasties, although with the MP40Ws, that's been less of an issue.
My experience & haven't caused a tank crash yet, sandbed is looking great. Might not work for someone else, it depends a lot on individual set ups, flow, age of sand, past maintenance, many other factors. Best advice I have is that if the surface of the sandbed is starting to look like it's collecting too much grunge, it's probably a good idea to lightly vacuum it. Then look at ways of perhaps increasing flow to keep the stuff suspended & prevent it from building up.
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