OK, well thanks for the cycling advice, I appreciate it, but... back to my original question: how can I better manage the pleco 'deposits' and the fact that my tank is cloudy? is the tank cloudy from bacterial bloom, or is it probably still the suspended dust?
Like I said, my large water changes have been mostly to get rid of the cloudy water. I know that I need ammonia to make it cycle... and I guess I'm being influenced by bio-spira success stories here, but I thought the general consensus was that it worked to cycle tanks rapidly (?)