Did Am Guard for ammonia just kill my corals?!

I'm with Gresham on this, if you over feed anyways, a small fish dead shouldn't really cause a spike like that, IMO, especially if the shrimp are fine. I'd take some water to your LFS and see what all your params are at.

what are your other params, salinity, trate, etc

 

Aquarium Pharmaceuticals.

 

Salinity is at 1.023
Nitrates 5.0 ppm

...this is after a 20 % WC this afternoon

 

Nitrites are reading 0
and possibly the problem?? High range PH 8.4 possibly 8.8

 

Take a sample to your LFS and have your sample cross checked, it could very well be interference from the AmmoGuard. I'm not all that up on Seachems product though, but like I said, most ammonia removers cause issues with certain test kits.

 

Happy to update, my corals are fine! Woo-hoo! They must just be dramatic like me, ha.
So, I'm going to test my ammonia and PH again this afternoon, do a 10% water change if need be and stop buying fish for at least 2 weeks.

 

One thing to consider is that MOST ammonia blockers will crash your pH in pretty short order. There are a few that are buffered, such as Ultimate or AmQuel Plus. I pretty much did the same as you about 20 years ago...had a star die on me, and as a kneejerk reaction tossed a bunch of regular AmQuel into the tank...crashed my pH like a big dog. Check your pH, and if it's low, buffer the tank a bit.

To be honest, unless something huge died in a small amount of water, your tank's biofiltration should burp and move on (assuming it's well-established). FWIW, your CUC probably dealt with it pretty quickly.

BTW, the test kits you DON'T want to use are the Nessler test kits...the salicylate kits are fine (API is a decently-priced one).

 

everything's fine. I was just being a drama queen. mushrooms opened nicely by noon

 

Thanks for everyone's post!

Yes, test kits that test for "total" ammonia, will give a false positive for ammonia in the presence of AmGuard. All test kits on the market, except for ours, only test for "total" ammonia. When adding AmGuard to a tank, you are wanting to detoxify "free" ammonia, which is the toxic form and what we are worried about. Nessler's and Salicylate kits will run the sample @ a high pH (>12), all ammonia removal products will breakdown and re-release the ammonia back into the sample, giving you a false high reading. Our kit gives you the option to run a "free" ammonia test, which in the presence of Prime, AmGuard, or any water conditioner that detoxifies ammonia, will read "safe" because there should not be any "free" ammonia present at that time. There is really no need to measure for total ammonia when you are only worried about "free" ammonia.