Re the pleco and the sword. My experience in this has been that the pleco is not trying to eat the sword, it is after the algae on the leaves. However, swords often have somewhat delicate leaves and when a pleco rasps the algae they damage (and manage to ingest) some of the leaf that rasps off along with the algae. And the bigger the pleco the more "accidental" damage it can do to any fine leaved plant. Bear in mind there is algae on the leaves we cannot see without an effort. But the plecos know it is there.
Also, I doubt the product had anything to do the the colonizing of the facultative bacteria. They are not strictly anaerobic. What they can do is to use oxygen and that works one way. However, when oxygen is not available, they can switch to using nitrate. When they do, what they "poop" out is N2, nitrogen gas. And if the oxygen returns, they can switch back to using it. When these facultative initially colonize in filter media, they are in their aerobic configuration. They will stay that way until two things happen: The oxygen in the water that reaches them is gone and there is nitrate in the water.
The best way to see this happen is to have a large volume of media for the bacteria. In some pathways though the media the nitrifying bacteria will have used up all the oxygen and then produced nitrate. If there are facultative bacteria in a pathway where the O is gome and the NO3 is present, they switch what they do. It is important to note that we are not talking about all the oxygen in all the water having been replaced with nitrate. But in some routes though the media this will be what happens. It takes some time for the facultative bacteria to colonize and then for some pathways where the niotrate has replaced the oxygen to develop.
This is not the same process that is used to clear large concentrations of nitrate in waste water treatment. This requires a much bigger and different method of filtration to handle. A dedicated large nitrate filter is used. In tanks we can change water to lower nitrate or we may have massive enough amounts of bio-media to allow for the facultative process describe above.
I have always cycled my tanks (after the first one) without fish. The only products/aids I have used in this effort are:
1. Ammonium chloride. I started w/Dr. Tim's, but moved to the big jug of the dry stuff from Fritz.
2. Dr. Tim's One & Only.
3. Squeezing out the foam from a filter or filters on my other fully cycled established tanks.
4. Crushed coral. To keep HK levels up- the bacteria use carbonates & bicarbonates to provide their needed inorganic carbon.
5. Live plants. They use nitrate because we can't add ammonia with fish present. Plants also host nitrifying bacteria,
I only need to use the crushed coral when I have the bio-farm going.
And I almost always fully stock (or overstock a bit) when the tank when it is ready. I cannot remember the last time I tested for nitrate. When I run the bio-farm, I basically only test ammonia and TDS. I do a nitrite test at the end to confirm the cycle is completed.
I do not understand why anyone would choose a fish in cycle over a fishless one. Since I, as well as all of you, are not perfect, we can make mistakes. A mistake in a fishless cycle is a PITA, a mistake in a fish-in cycle can harm or kill fish.
Before, I discovered ammonium chloride, I used plain old household ammonia to cycle tanks. It worked fine and the fact that it contained a small amount of surfactants does not matter. During the cycle i would do a few 50%+ water changes and then I would replace the ammonia I had removed when doing the refill. When the cycle was complete, I would do a huge (90%) water change and then I added a big bag of carbon to a filter. I ran this for one day and then in went the fish. This insured the water was perfectly safe in terms of adding them. Back then, I did regularly test for nitrite and then for nitrate once or twice when cycling.
The reason for testing nitrites was the fishless cycle back then overdid the ammonia as it was dosed in drops per gallon of water. But, when nitrite appeared, the ammonia dose was cut in half. It took time for folks in the hobby to figure out a cycle required much less ammonia to complete. Usually, the only reason for testing nitrate would be for a cycle with fish. They can be harmed by nitrate before it can impact a cycle.
I have never read an article on cycling which suggested one buy a bag of the API product (or anything similar) to do a cycle, not even one that used fish. I have great well water, so nitrate coming in was never an issue. But if it had been, I would have used live plants and/or RO/DI or DI water to deal with it.
Most experienced fish keepers prefer not to use chemical solutions to deal with most issues in our tanks. We tend to prefer a more natural way unless that is not possible. When a sick fish needs an antibiotic would be an example.
As always, how I do things is my way and is not necessarily the only nor the best way. However, the science is the science. Until what is known changes down the road, it is he best information available. Science expects future advances in knowledge and/or equipment to change what we thought was known. It used to be thought that the bacteria processing nitrite to nitrate in tanks was Nitrobacter. Then along came Dr. Hovanec and his research discovered this was not the case, that it was actually Nitrospira. Then it was discovered that the Nitrospira could also process ammonia straight through to nitrate. Science does not stand still, it always challenges what we thought we knew.
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