I had a similar situation with my tank. Ammonia spiked big time after a couple of days. I did water changes, about 20% every day or two and really didn't see a major drop in ammonia but I figured it couldn't hurt. After 8 or 9 days, the ammonia dropped to nothing, the nitrite climbed to moderate levels and it took 2 1/2 weeks for that to drop. The nitrate seemed to drop to 0 very shortly after that.
You'll get a good amount of diatoms, the brown stuff covering the rocks during this period but just live with it. Once all params are to 0, make a water change and get some snails, a bunch of them, and over a week or two, they will rid your rock of most of the diatoms. As the snails cleaned the rock, the coraline that had been bleached seemed to color up overnight. Just be patient with the whole process and change the water as much as you want in my opinion. I've been told by many on here that the bacteria are mostly in your rock and substrate and the water change will not slow the process. The only way water changes would slow things would be if the result was a drop in ammonia below a point that would trigger the cycle.
