Get yourself on of those "tank vacuums". It has the wide tube on one side which drops the suction so the sand lifts up a bit, but the sand never really comes out, but the detritus, food, etc. does. Any pet/fish store normally has them.
Good way to do water changes, especially if you have no sump for stuff to settle in.
I use it to supplement my sump cleaning, I just use it to go over all the rocks and any areas where I see detritus settling.
On the pic above, I put in a siphon ball inline so I do not have to do that up/down motion to start the siphon. Works GREAT! Any siphon bulb will work, you can find them easily at wallmart or a marine store.