Unresolved Hammer Died. have amn and nitrites Cause or Result?

so my rent are looking after the tank while i am away. (12 months) i expected to lose some stuff, naturaly. so my hammer frag kicked the bucket, it looked happy and was doing well as far i as told before going down hill. now i have ammonia and nitrites. 0.25 and 0.1. the sponge in the filter was cleaned about a week ago and the phosguard and carbon were changed 2 weeks before the sponge. i have around 50lbs of LR in the tank (rsm 130) so i figured doing the carbon/media and sponge 2 weeks apart wouldnt have much of a negative effect. so what do you guys think was it the ammonia that killed the hammer or is it hammer that is causing the ammonia. or worse the tank is cycling. tests were done at lfs using salifert kits. all other corals look fine and coraline algae is growing well. i have them mixing water for a wc if necessary. thanks in advance.

 

The hammer probably caused the Ammonia. I suspect (assuming the hammer was removed) if you tested for Ammonia tonight, you won't have a reading.

 

should i had some prime or some microbacter 7 to the tank? or should i wait until the water is tested tom to see what the results are. the hammer wasnt removed (will be soon) i wasnt sure if it was dead (pics were bad), but with the water having .25 of ammonia and .1 nitrite i am now sure its dead/dying.

 

Remove the hammer and it'll all work out. If you have fish breathing hard (which you shouldn't) you could add Prime but I wouldn't worry about a waterchange or Prime. That's what live rock does for you....nitrifies Ammonia and Nitrite.