How do you Vacuum Sand?

I have brown dust looking particles on my live sand. It's noticeable since I've gotten rid of my sand-sifting Goby. It's also come along with the brown hair algae.
Is there a way to vacuum sand without sucking out snails and stuff on the bottom? Any product recommendations and brief tutorials...

Or can I just blast it with a power head or use my fingers or a turkey baster... or are these suggestions bad?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

Get a turkey baster and blow water at your sand before you do a water change.

 

I used my power heads until I got my goby. Why did you get rid of the goby?

 

i have a pistol shrimp he does a great job of turning up the sand

 

I've use a regular vacuum hose, the one you buy for the aquariums I meant...lol it has a clear hose and the end is larger to avoid sucking to much sand and heavy stuff, or you can use just a regular hose and cut out the bottom off of an alcohol bottle then stick one end of the hose in mouth of it where the cap goes, need to remove cap first!!! of course, wait to you try getting rid off cyano, now that's a real $*^%$#

 

I have never vacuumed/cleaned my sand. I rely on sand sifting snails and fish to do that dirty work for me. That being said, you need to figure out what's causing the algae because no matter how much you clean it, it will always come back until you do away with whatever is causing it.

 

How do I figure out what's causing it?
Phosphates, nitrates... all zero.
I just changed the lights from t5's to vho's (440 watts super white and super actinic)
They run about 7 hours.
I use ro/di water... I have 4 power heads on a wave maker... I use a mag 9 pump into the chiller... which goes back to my return flow...
However, I do know the rate of return was reduced. Do you think I should disconnect the chiller and try going straight from the sump to the tank to see if flow was my culprit? The algae did begin (i think) around the time the chiller was connected.

I'm just so confused ... the turbo snails are feasting... but the tank looks brown on the rocks with hair... and there's brown dust on the sand in spots.

PS I got rid of the goby because he was sifting sand everywhere and sprinkling it on every piece of rock... he was a pain... I posted my comments on it in a topic called Yellow head goby a real pain in the a**!

 

Are you testing your tank water for phosphates and nitrates? If you are, test your make up/water change water. Your algae could be sucking up phosphates and nitrates so testing your tank water will not help you figure out if that's what's causing your problem.

 

Tested my Ro/Di water...
the color is very light yellow for phosphates... that's not even on the color chart for the api reef master test kit...

Does that indicate no phosphates? It also turns a weird brown color after about 5 minutes in the test ... anyone with the same results...
don't think my ro/di water is the culprit at all.

 

If it's turning yellow at all, I would think that you've got phosphates. Do you have any other brand of test kit? I'm not too fond of the API kits and would prefer to use a test kit that is more accurate, like Salifert or Red Sea.