The study of microbial communities in sediments is impaired by the lack of reliable extraction methods. This study reports on the efficiency of recovery of a method for extracting bacteria, protists and diatoms from sandy sediments using a modified decant/fix method. The best extractions were achieved after fixation with a microtubule stabilising fixative and subsequent sonication for 80 seconds. We estimate that the efficiencies of recovery of bacteria and mixed heterotrophic flagellates were $96.4{pm}3.5\%$ and $96.9{pm}4.6\%$, respectively. Diatoms were recovered with an efficiency of 38-83% and varied considerably from species to species. This study suggests that the decant/fix method is effective in extracting small cells such as bacteria and heterotrophic flagellates, and that the efficiency of recovery of the method varies due to cell length and different types of organisms. When microbial carbon biomass had been underestimated by up to 32%, with much of that relating to larger cells such as microalgae and ciliates. We note that the corrected abundances may be still a subset of the total numbers present.