I had the same trouble with that white cichlid sand. It is just super super fine. I had trouble when i would vacuum the bottom. You hardly have to get near that stuff and it gets sucked up. I ended up adding the black tahitian moon sand to the white. I didn't really like the white sand anyway since it made my fish colors all washed out. Adding the black helped settle the white sand down as the black is a bit more coarse. I will never buy/use that fine white sand again. I've used play sand which was ok, just took a ridiculous amount of time to wash prior to putting it in a tank. I'd try the pool filter sand next, if I didn't want the black stuff.
