gee I didn't know I was all that well known.
sure you can kick off a cycle by stirring up the gravel. And sometimes there is cloudiness afterwards. I think the main thing is that you have stirred all the "crud" up resulting in more nutrients in the water colum. Until the filters remove that or you kill the lights or the stuff settles down it will remain cloudy. Hopefully for just a short time.
FWIW my 7 year old tank (now torn down for a move) was not unique bit rather standard operation for my tanks since 1979 with the same results.
What happens with planted tanks is the ammonia->nitrIte->nitrate spikes are interrupted by the plants because the plants prefer to consumer ammonia directly. So the spikes are stopped as the bacteria builds up. So at first you get a nitrate spike as the plants forgo nitrates in favor of ammonia. Then when bacteria has built up the nitrates finally drop down.
This also happens when you disturbe the substrate, add fish, have a fish death or whatever. So the tank is very forgiving of my fumbled fingered effots to make it look better.
just my .02