Cleaning Sand?

when there is sand, there's no reason to scoop into the sand like you do with gravel. The dirt and stuff tha needs to be clean will be sitting right up on top so you could just skim the top of the sand with the vac while cleaning.

Diito that. I have sand and just surface vacuum the crap away.

just use a gravel siphon effort, but with a smaller pipe or a valve to restrict the flow, i have river sand its only a problem if the pipe is to wide

You can see my tank in my sig. That's Pool Filter Sand. I use a Python on full force when I clean. Sometimes I'll pick up some sand, but not often, usually just a surface vac, like everyone else has described. It works perfectly in my experience. I am also fortunate in that I have a lot of plants and my cory cats and ghost shrimp keep the bottom looking really nice! The ghost shrimp will sift through fish excrement to get undigested flake food... all in all, this is a very efficient tank, but I still hover over the surface of the sand, moving the vac end slowly to cover the whole tank at least once a week.