There are different species of bacteria that consume/oxidize different nitrogen compounds. AOB - Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria and NOB - Nitrite Oxidizing Bacteria. You can look up the various genus and species. They are ubiquitous - meaning everywhere. Which is why starters just speed up cycling. The tank will cycle without them.
Starter additives usually have both species, however the strains they use may vary. If you add multiple brands of starters you can actually delay (but NOT stop) cycling. This is reported from vendors as due to competition among the bacteria. I think starters are good things - reducing time is a plus. However, I think it gives the false impression to new reefers that cycling is something you have to manage aggressively. It's not.
The test strips are simply a way to save money. You do not need expensive kits or burn through the reagents to monitor cycling. Basically what's needed is a something that says "ammonia present", "ammonia not present". The indicator will vary by brand. Same for nitrate....present and increasing (getting darker usually) or not present yet. Once you have 'zero' ammonia and increasing nitrate - then you can break out the expensive and more precise kits to tell you how much water change to reduce nitrates you need before adding fish.
Note I did not say test for nitrite. Nitrite is just a step between ammonia and nitrate. It's not toxic to fish in marine environment. You can look at it because it's on the test strip, but as long as nitrate is coming up a few days to a week/10 days after you see ammonia - don't worry about it. I do not know what nitrite stalling is. See earlier...cycling is inevitable. Even without adding any starters. You can of course, dump the entire bottle of ammonia in your tank and kill off bacteria (it's toxic to most life at high enough concentrations - and I'd recommend a 100% WC and start over - but that's it - it will cycle after that).
You do have to add some more ammonia if you're going to delay adding fish. Bacteria have to eat. But it's much, much less. Maybe 2 ppm once or twice a week will be fine.
Also, as BRS pointed out, there are differences in what type of tank you have, but mostly in timing. Bare bottom may take a little longer (sand is a great media), live rock from the ocean may not need a formal cycling exercise at all. Most of have sand and dry rock and those are what my times are based on.
Lastly, cycling only applies to this initial period to make sure there's no toxic levels of ammonia before you add fish. After cycling your tank, based on how you've set it up will change where the dominant nitrogen processing is. Maybe your tank will have the right combo of rock, sand and media to manage nitrate as well. Maybe you'll have a refugium that does the bulk of ammonia/ammonium mgmt.
If you add more rock that wasn't cured (dead stuff allowed to decompose) then you may have some ammonia spikes (what is referred to - inaccurately as a "mini-cycle". It's just stuff dying off - same as if you had a fish die off.
Wow, wrote more than intended. Who doesn't love chit chatting about reefing, right? Anyway, hope this clears up some confusion on the points I was trying to make and cycling in general.
