Accidentally overdosed bottled ammonia in the fishless cycle

[Dayron the reefer]

Hello
So here is the problem I just got done setting up my 50 gallon reef aquarium and I did a really stupid mistake. I always cycle my tanks using the fishless cycle method in which I use a bottle of ATM bacteria along with ammonia in a bottle to feed the bacteria until they populate the aquarium and it’s safe to add fish. The problem is that I accidentally dosed too much ammonia and my Red Sea ammonia test kit shows it’s higher than 8.PPM. I was wondering what should I do it has been 2 days and the bacteria have not consumed any of the ammonia and I’m worried they might have died because of the spike. What should I do? Should I wait or just replace all the water and buy a new bottle of bacteria?

the owner of the LFS I shop at who is a good friend of mine told me that too much ammonia can stunt the growth of nitrifying bacteria and can ruin the cycle and his advice was to throw all the water out and make new saltwater and buy a new bottle of bacteria but what do you guys think?.


Tank equipment:
Reef octopus classic 1000 HOB skimmer
Fluval 207 canister filter
Eheim jagger 250 watt heater
Current USA eFLUX pumps 1050 gph
Current USA orbit marine led

Sand and rocks:
35 pounds of caribe sea ocean direct live sand
45 pounds of Marco dry rocks

 

[Doctorgori]

if any lived, you could do nothing, it might take a lot longer
or
50 gallons, Depending on what you are used to, a H2O change works depending on how much bother you want.
I could be wrong but I don’t see any “bottled” solutions other than adding more of the same, which can’t hurt

 

[nereefpat]

It might be worth diluting your tank water with newly mixed saltwater and measuring ammonia, so you can determine how high it really is.

I would probably change about 75% of the water. It's cheap.

 

[jrill]

Water change so at or less than 4ppm. Add more bacteria and restart the cycle.

 

[Malcontent]

I'd sit back and wait.

 

[Dayron the reefer]

I think that what I am gonna do is wait a week or so and then if the bacteria don’t consume the ammonia I’m gonna drain the tank and start all over again.

 

[jfoahs04]

I’d wait a week or so to see if anything changes. If it doesn’t, I’d do at least a 50% water change and wait a little more. You should not need to drain the tank completely, re-fill, and then add more bacteria.

 

[AydenLincoln]

You can do a very large water change and add lots of bacteria but as others have suggested keep testing and wait. Also I was advised against dosing with ammonia because this was my fear and instead did a fish-in cycle and it’s been a month and I see happy little fishies.

 

[PatW]

Bacteria are pretty bullet proof. I bet that they can handle it. It will just take awhile. Of course, you will end up with really high nitrates at the end. Of course, you can just do a big water change like 50-80% and add more bacteria at the end.

 

[sithrico]

I think I did the same thing over dosing with Nitrocycle. I followed their dosing quote 1mL per GAL. I have 12 gallons. Was way over on ammonia. I did a half water change and left it alone. Things worked out and now I'm cycled. Took 2.5 weeks to pull through. Normally I cycle in 6 days.