Ammonia spike! Help!

[SoCalReefer19]

My tank has been fully cycled for about 4 weeks. Long story short my kid dumped a bottle of Red Sea bacto-start in my tank. This occurred one hour ago and I have a massive ammonia spike on my hands. I’m going to do two 50% water changes back to back right now and see what happens. Anything else I can do!?? My fish look exhausted just trying to breath. I’ve placed my tang in a bucket of new salt water until I can stabilize this. He wasn’t breathing too good. Thanks

 

[ahiggins]

Seachem prime to neutralize the ammonia. I would still do water changes but it’s a bandaid to neutralize it till you can do more

 

[ahiggins]

How high is it?

 

[Mjrenz]

As stated above, prime asap to bind the ammonia, it only lasts 24 to 48 hours so it will need to be redosed to keep everyone alive until the ammonia is under control. A bottled bacteria like biospira will help to process the ammonia. A methelyne blue bath can help with with ammonia burns to save your fish if they are in distress and having trouble breathing https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/methylene-blue.257467/

 

[SoCalReefer19]

Ammonia was reading 5.0. I just did two water changes back to back each 50% literally no change. My lfs is closed. This is awful. I have my fish in a separate container with a power head

 

[xiholdtruex]

Ammonia was reading 5.0. I just did two water changes back to back each 50% literally no change. My lfs is closed. This is awful. I have my fish in a separate container with a power head

How big is your tank? If you pulled all the fish out and temp match water I would try 100% wc, drop some carbon in there just in case corals start a war

 

[SoCalReefer19]

55 gallons. Ammonia levels are now reading 2.0 next morning

 

[Cell]

Needs O2. Got an airstone you can drop in there?

 

[SoCalReefer19]

My fish appear to be healthy staging in a 20 gallon frag tank. Power head and monitoring ammonia in there while I sort this out. Prepared to do daily water changes in that holding tank. Are my fish likely injured even though they look good now?