Yeah my 90 took nearly two months.
One reason to tell someone (mostly newbies) to test every other day or so is to get them used to doing the tests. You've read these forums where so many of them just say "the water tests perfect" and of course we are left wondering If they truley are or not. There are many who say they have "NO" or "ZERO" nitrAtes. I can tell you there are almost always some nitrAtes in a tank.
Test everyday? I can also tell you when I set up my 90 gallon I put a huge Prawn in there and didn't test for the first two weeks. I knew what was happening in there anyway, so why waste the test kits? When I finally did test my ammonia and nitrates were both off the chart. I still waited near the two month mark, did a 30% water change and then had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and about 20ppm for nitrates.
More variables here as well, testing may be very important "Everyday" if an event occurs in which there are living fish, inverts and such in the aquarium, such as how this thread started, with living things in the balance in a bucket right now, needing to be placed back in as soon as possible.
So I know what you mean.
Like I said there are so many variables to a cycling tank. But I can't imagine the bacteria's getting together and saying that since this a smaller tank we don't have to wait so long, this will be easy. Like the female of our species and getting pregnant, just because the woman is larger or smaller doesn't mean it won't take 9 months right? many variables there to the human process as well, things don't alwyas take 9 months just because someone set the standard.
What I posted is rather based on salt water only with no bacteria colonies in existance when started.. Now if you add bacteria colonies due to rock, sand or other surfaces then you may very well change the time it takes to cycle. Also there will need to be a source of ammonia, a constant source. The amount produced will dictate how many of those first stage bacteria it will take to break it down into the second stage nitrItes. Thus we get into the bio load area of it again.
Hope that answers your questions
Thomas