Seachem Prime vs. AmGuard

[Biggest Little Reef]

I'm picking up a few fish from my LFS this weekend and I've decided to quarantine them. I've never quarantined fish before, just acclimated them and introduced them into my main display tank. This time around, I figured since I have the spare equipment to do it, I would do it right.

My biggest concern is dealing with an ammonia / nitrite spike as the QT system cycles. I'm using a decent size media bag full of rubble rock that has been in the sump of my main tank for many months, but I filled the QT tank itself with freshly mixed saltwater. I'm hoping the biological filtration from the cycled rubble rock will be enough to take care of converting ammonia and nitrites. However, I wanted to be prepared for any major ammonia / nitrite spikes, just in case.

So, I purchased both Seachem Prime and AmGuard, because I couldn't decide between the two. Can anyone explain the major differences between these two products? From what I can tell, AmGuard specifically detoxifies ammonia in emergency situations and Prime seems to do the same thing but with some other useful benefits. Which one should I plan on using, if I need to?

 

[Spare time]

Seachem AmGuard vs. Seachem Prime: Which is Better at Detoxifying Ammonia?

Ammonia is very toxic to fish even in small amounts. If your aquarium has not been properly cycled, then you could get ammonia spikes. One of the potential

aquariumblueprints.com

 

[Biggest Little Reef]

Seachem AmGuard vs. Seachem Prime: Which is Better at Detoxifying Ammonia?

Ammonia is very toxic to fish even in small amounts. If your aquarium has not been properly cycled, then you could get ammonia spikes. One of the potential

aquariumblueprints.com

Wow, this is an excellent article and exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Basically, AmGuard is better to treat major ammonia emergencies above 2ppm. But if you're ammonia is below 2ppm, you're better off using Prime to detox the ammonia and realize its other benefits.

To summarize the article for others who might be interested...

Recap
Seachem AmGuard is the better of the two products at detoxifying ammonia as you can treat for more than 2ppm. In comparison, Seachem Prime can only treat 2ppm of ammonia at the most.

With that said, Prime has a lot of other features, the most important of which is its ability to also detoxify nitrite. If you have ammonia, then you most likely need to treat nitrite, which is also toxic to fish, as well. Not to mention that prime will also detoxify nitrates and heavy metals in addition to triggering your fish to develop healthy slime coats.

Overall, we recommend using Seachem Prime over Seachem AmGuard if you have an ammonia level of 2 ppm of less. If you have a higher level, then we suggest first dosing AmGuard and then dose Prime one hour later so that you can detoxify the high amounts of ammonia in addition to the nitrites.