Clean Up Sluice Guide: 4 Tiers Compared (2026)
A clean up sluice recirculates water through a pump so you can process concentrates anywhere — no creek required. Prospectors Dream sells four tiers of one: a $52 bare unit up to a $199 dual-mat system. Here’s exactly what each tier adds, and where the jump actually matters.
Why a Clean Up Sluice Exists (and Why It’s Different From a Field Sluice)
A field sluice box needs a creek — moving water pushes concentrate across the mat and out the tail. A clean up sluice flips that: a small pump recirculates the same water in a closed loop, so you can run concentrates on a table in your garage, at a campsite, or in a hotel room. You’re not looking for gold in raw material anymore; you’re re-running already-classified concentrate through a faster, tighter mat to pull out what a field pass left behind.
Prospectors Dream builds this as a genuine product ladder rather than one fixed unit — each tier keeps the same core idea (3D-printed sluice body + pump + Dream Mat) and adds one specific capability. That makes “which one do I need” mostly a question of how much concentrate you’re actually processing per session, not budget alone.
Every tier below ships from Prospectors Dream. See our full coupon list for the current factory-second and bundle deals, and our Prospectors Dream review for how the brand’s whole catalog fits together.
The Clean Up Sluice Ladder: 4 Tiers, One Product Line
Each tier below is a real, currently-sold Prospectors Dream SKU (fetched live from the brand’s own product data). Read top to bottom — each one is what you get if you start from the tier above it and add the listed upgrade.
The frame only: for anyone who already owns a pump and just wants the sluice body.
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The complete starter kit — everything you need in the box, nothing to source separately.
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Merges a full 4×16 No-Flare Adventure Sluice with the Buddy’s portability — a real step up in capacity, not just a bigger pump.
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The only tier with two capture stages — built for prospectors who keep finding gold in their tailings from the other three tiers.
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Which Tier Actually Fits You?
| → | Already own a 400–500 GPH pump from another kit? Get the bare unit ($52) instead of paying for a second pump. |
| → | First clean-up system, working near a wall outlet at home? The $89 kit is the complete, no-extra-purchase starting point. |
| → | Camping, RV, or off-grid — no 110V outlet available? Skip straight to The Boss Combo ($152) for the 12V battery-powered pump. |
| ! | Still finding color in your tailings after running them through a single-mat kit? That’s the specific problem the Switchback’s dual-mat design ($199) exists to solve — a second capture stage catches what the first one lets through. |
A Clean Up Sluice Is the Last Step, Not the Only Step
Everything above assumes you already have concentrate to run — material that’s been through a field sluice or highbanker and reduced down to black sands and fines. If you’re earlier in the process, two guides fill in the gaps: our fine gold recovery equipment guide covers which Dream Mat profile to classify feed for and the manual finishing tools (Blue Bowl, finishing pan) that come after a clean-up sluice pass, and our best Dream Mat for fine gold guide covers the field-sluice side of that same workflow.
Both the Boss Combo and the Switchback reuse Dream Mat matting cut down to size rather than a generic screen — see our Dream Mat size and price breakdown if you want to understand what makes that mat profile different from a standard expanded-metal screen. And if your concentrate is coming off a highbanker rather than a hand sluice, our Highbanker Sluice Box guide covers the upstream setup a clean-up sluice like this one is designed to finish off.
