Disaster in the tank...advice needed

So this morning, something unthinkable happened...my 4 year old got a hold of a betta pellets container and dumped it all in my 20 gl community tank. OMG. I almost died. I quickly scrambled and vacuumed out as much as I could, shifting plants, rocks, substrate, but there are still a lot of pellets left in the tank. Today's cleaning sucked out 40% of the water and the problem is that I already had done a water change yesterday 50%.
What is going to happen with having so many pellets in the tank ?
Did the second in a row water change going to shock my tank or fish ?
What can I do for the next little while ? I'm assuming if the fish don't gorge themselves and die, I'm gonna have huge ammonia spike right ?
Stock:
Cory cats
Pendazona barbs
Cardinal tetras
1 Gourami
3 platties
Snails (apple and nerite)
Cherry shrimp
Heavily planted

 

Your fish will not get shocked with multiple water changes. You can do another one later today if you feel it will help.
Keep getting as many pellets out as possible so they can't gorge themselves.
Keep testing the water to see where your ammonia and nitrites are at.
I hope you dont lose any.

 

As long as you are temp matching and adding your conditioner to the water you are replacing your fish shouldn't be affected by multiple water changes.

 

Your fish will not get shocked with multiple water changes. You can do another one later today if you feel it will help.
Keep getting as many pellets out as possible so they can't gorge themselves.
Keep testing the water to see where your ammonia and nitrites are at.
I hope you dont lose any.

Unfortunately I can't get any more pellets out unless I completely empty the tank of plants fish and decor and do a thorough cleaning. My tank is heavily planted. I'll have to uproot everything since the pellets got to every nook an crany and spot. I managed to suck out about 90% though.

 

If you have a turkey baster you may be able to use it to blow the rest of the pellets out into an open area. If you got at least 90% of them out of there the remaining ones may not cause major problems though. In a well established tank the bacteria should catch up with a higher bio-load (more ammonia) fairly quick.

 

Wish I could have seen the look on your face.

 

Wish I could have seen the look on your face.

Yeah, it was one for the scrapbooks. Worthy of a frame up. Lol
Well looks like I cleaned pretty well yesterday and my corry cats took care of some more pellets. They look fine and no strange behavior after yesterday's buffet.
Maybe the snails had a fiesta too. The tank looks ok again, no ammonia spike so far. I'll be keeping a close eye on it every day for the next little while.