1" is OK to syphon. I syphon my sand bed into though filter sock one a month or so. I don't have to rush the job because all the water is going back into my sump, filtered of most of the crud. If you've never syphoned your sand bed before you might want to do it when you do a water change, there's likely to be some nasty stuff in there.
The best thing I did to clean up my sand bed was to establish an algae refugium. It out-competes the algae and diatoms that grow in your tank.
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