Byron,
The problem with "cycling," using plants consuming ammonia/ammonium is that
the nitrogen cycle will usually never get establish, as they'll be largely
starved out. As you said yourself, the plants will out-compete the
nitrifying bacteria for food, especially the Nitrosomas and Nitrospira (those
bacteria which feed directly only on ammonia).
In those cases where a nitrogen cycle does get establish, this would only
occur when there is too little plant life available in the aquarium to
prevent the ammonia from spiking. In which case, a spike in ammonia -- and a
sufficient population of Nitrosomas and Nitrospira enabling the conversion of
sufficient ammonia to nitrite, to feed and establish large enough populations
of Nitrobacters and Nitrospina -- is the only way a substantial enough
cycle is to be established to constantly convert the organic waste of a normal
bioload of fishes to ensure the Free Ammonia level never reaching toxicity.
But to get back to using plants. While we know many aquatic plants will
feed on ammonia, we also know that the presence of ammonia is not needed for
plants to thrive. I'm sure you must know, that plants can utilize other
foods, nitrate not being adverse to their needs. There are also food
supplements such as Flourish Excel, which are used by many successful plant growers --
Takashi Amano being just one of them. It would be infinitely more
beneficial both for growing plants while assuring the establishment of a nitrogen
cycle for the fishes in the same tank, to start the majority of the plants
only after the cycle has become established via nitrifying bacteria.
With plants otherwise consuming ammonia, it's difficult, if not impossible
to be able to cycle your tank with sufficiently large populations of
bacteria, to remove the organic waste level of a tank of fish if for any reason
those same plants weren't present -- which could happen, for example, when
needing to raise the temperature above the plants' tolerance in treating some
fish diseases (and having many of the plants die as a result of this
necessity). It is not safe in the aquarium to rely solely on plants to remove
ammonia without being able to grow a large enough population of nitrifying
bacteria. Growing plants is not cycling.
Ray
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