Yesterday I decided to switch my gravel to sand and It looks fantastic. (Not an easy switch though) But today when I went to clean it it sucked a lot of the sand out with the water. I am using a gravel vac with the hose throw out a window. The sand that I purchased was sand taken from the ocean it was in 10lb bags but it looks like beach sand. I think I should have bought the sand that was larger in diameter. Is there a specific sand that doesnt suck out with the water?

Cleaning sand is the complete opposite of cleaning gravel. When you clean sand, you hover just above it using the force of the suction to lift all the crap. You will suck sand up if you get too close. Don't worry, you'll soon get the hang of it

Because sand is so fine no debris get trapped under it unlike gravel, the waste just sits on top of the sand. So as OFL says all you need to do is hold the gravel vac above the sand at the right height to suck the debris out but not the sand

rember to mess around with the sand every now and then to get rid of the air pockets that form under the sand that release gasses

Im giving upon sand I suck at cleaning it now half of my tank is glass. I tried and tried just not for me I guess.

when you clean sand you cant let the vacuum actually touch the bottom simply hover about 1/8" above your substrate and the waste will be picked up. it took me about a week to get it to work properly and now that i have the hang of it my vacumming time is less than half of what it was with gravel and i will never go back. also ofl has a video on how to clean sand somewhere on the site