To each their own, and everyone is entitled to their opinions and experiences, but I strongly disagree with easywolf.
For one, water changes will have no negative impact on cycling, and are absolutely crucial to maintaining the health of your fish. It can be a struggle, but I personally wouldn't allow ammonia or nitrite to exceed .25-.5(max), even though this can require multiple pwc's per day.
Prime does help in detoxifying ammonia / nitrite, but only to a certain level and for a brief period of time. It can also be used up to 5x normal dose in an emergency situation to help detoxify nitrite.
I would also suggest keeping substrate exquisitely clean. The overwhelming majority of your beneficial bacteria colonizes in your filter media due to the oxygen rich environment. The substrate is one of the most anaerobic areas of your entire aquarium and holds minuscule amounts of BB (though every inch of the tank will have some tiny degree). I would rather aggressively vacuum and ensure there is no food or other detritus contributing to releasing additional toxins.
I have entirely changed out 100% of the substrate in my aquariums many times with zero impact on the biofilter (though always a good idea to monitor if you do so).
Cycling with fish is obviously a long, slow pain in the ***, but the name of the game is keeping the toxin levels as low as possible through water changes until the biofilter establishes which often takes well over a month with a fish-in cycle.
