Cleaning the sand?

[scubayachts]

Hello forum. I havent posted in a year or two.
I came back from college today for my winter break and my tank just needs a little work. I have always had nitrate problems with my tank but only have 3 small fish in a 75 gallon with about 40lbs live rock.
I have 75 pounds of live sand in the bottom and was thinking about switching to a 1-2" sand bed. When I break my tank down today and empty all the water and rocks in a big trash can I am going to need to pull the sand so the tank can get a good cleaning.
Question! Sence I am switching to a ssb should I clean the sand before it goes back in an what is the best method of doing this? Fresh water, old salt water from tank? Thanks everyone and merry christmas!

 

[spanko]

Hmmm. 75 lbs. of sand on the bottom of a standard 75 gallon tank should give you about a 2" bed already.
Here is a sandbed calculator.
http://www.garf.org/calculators/SandBedCalculator.asp

 

[scubayachts]

i think im gunna take it down a little maybe over 1" so all the critters can really keep it stirred up. How about the cleaning process when I take all the sand out of the tank? Theres a top layer of stuff I want to get rid of.