I've read through the whole thread, and here are some of my thoughts on the topic:
I think many participants are disproportionately focused on accelerating nitrogen cycle. To me, nitrification does not present a problem. Firstly, we mostly keep our tanks acidic, and thanks to that any danger of ammonia is low. Secondly, nitrification begins and runs in all tanks, without any need to support it, even in quite
extreme conditions. Thirdly, we are plant-lovers, and plants uptake ammonium happily, perhaps more so than nitrates.
Some participants expressed opinion that microbial inoculations are worthless because microbes are omnipresent and proliferate rapidly in favourable conditions. I see it rather differently.
Firstly, ideal rate of multiplication differs very much from what occurs in natural conditions. Quite to the contrary, if we encounter rapid proliferation of some microbes, it's a sign of unbalanced, incomplete microbial life, very far from an
apex. Secondly, the speed of proliferation varies among different microbes by orders of magnitude. There are some strains which multiply quickly and naturally dominate the crowd, but different strains follow very different strategies. Scientific papers have documented cases where it takes months or years before a chosen microbe gets well established.
I think it's a mistake to believe that microflora in our tanks is commonly nearing an apex, i.e. an ideal, balanced state, where every niche is served by appropriate microbes. For that, our tanks are too young and subject to too many game-changing events. Only few of these developments we can perceive visually: blooms, benthic algae attacks, occasionally fungi. Why do they happen while we apparently had done nothing wrong? That's often a mystery. Yet in any case, it's a sign of continuous development of the tank's microbial community.
I think it's helpful to perceive microbial life in a tank as a single whole - including procaryotes as well as "small" eucaryotes like protists, fungi,
algae a.o. All of them participate in very complex interactions, and any event may influence it. A lot depends on pure chance, too. I'd like to stress one important example of an unpredictable development: Microbes are omnipresent, indeed, but it does not mean a particular microbe can easily
enter a system (i.e. our tank). Even in an incompletely stabilized system, competition is severe and those who had arrived first are often in advantage.
In general, we welcome benthic (settled) prokaryotes and fungi, and struggle to eliminate benthic algae (incl. cyanobacteria) and all planktonic microbes. They are always present, all of them, yet sometimes the balance moves towards unwelcome groups. All of us know algal attacks pretty well, and getting rid of them is often difficult.
I believe that one of possibly efficient actions is adding new microbes (bacteria) to the system. To be sure, we don't know what we do, we shoot in complete darkness. Yet chances are that these newly introduced bacteria will tip the scales from our "enemies" toward our "allies".
This is what I'm pursuing as one possible move against algae, and your comments, experience, observations will be warmly welcome.
(Not only @Hufsa )