New to salt water dont know how to clean sand

The beauty of having a salt tank is that you don't clean your substrate, you employ critters to do this for you. You are correct, siphoning will suck out the sand. There are tons of beneficial organism that will live in your sand bed that you don't want to get rid of, since they are part of the cycle of life in the tank. They will break down the organic waste for you. Are you just trying to pick up the broken pieces of rock or are you thinking that you need to siphon the sand as you would a fresh water tank?

 

Additionally,you will release harmful gasses from the substrate by trying to clean it.

 

Yup. If there is something you want to remove from the surface of it, you can siphon it off, but don't stir it up.

 

not disturbing your sand bed only applies if you have a deep sand bed 2+ inches. What I have is a strainer very similar to a kitty litter scoop that I use to clean up empty shells or rock type debris in my sand bed.