QT Failure?

[Neptune 555]

I am struggling to figure out what went wrong in my QT process. I had 2 wrasses / 1 flame angel / 1 blue spotted puffer in QT together 20 gallon tank. As this bio load is quite heavy I decided to add 4 pieces of live rock to my QT to ensure stability. I added 1 power head / 1 HOB filter w/ seeded pad in filter. I also used an ammonia remover CL - . I had ammonia alert badges and they were yellow maybe just a FAINT hit of green - so hard to tell? My Christmas wrasse died yesterday. No spots? In fact his color dead was still amazing? All other fish alive? IF it was ammonia wouldn't my flame angel be dead? AND since the fish died at some point when I was at work wouldn't that have caused further ammonia?

My fish only seem to die in QT? never once in my display tank?? Is my QT wrong?

 

[alton]

That is a lot of fish for a 20, I use a 40B, but fish do die for no reason. One of the biggest reasons to QT, better there than your DT? My only question was there any picking/bullying?

 

[Sycoticrealm]

I like to make a QT natural as possible at first to replicate my DT. I only remove skimmer rocks if they show signs of any kind of sickness. 90% of my fish live ive only lost 2 fish ever to parasites. 4 more to my own mistakes or fish jumping. And 1 because it refused to eat because bangaii can be picky eaters.

With that being said i believe in feeding well and garlic seems to do me well.
With having a live rock establish QT it reduces the stress in my opinion.
I have successfully QT in a empty tank with pvc pipe before also but that was for when i treated with copper.

Anyways my question is did you use any cycled water from you DT you plan to put them in to fill this tank?
My guess is they'll all die if they're not strong enough to with stand the ammonia spikes.

 

[Neptune 555]

No I did not use cycled water from DT. I used rocks and seeded filter pads? See ammonia alert badge and tank below? What am I doing wrong w/ QT that fish die? The live rock used was 10 years old? You would think a few pieces at 10 years old would suffice? He was eating before he died? He has no spots. His swimming was normal. In fact I thought he was sleeping vs dead b/c I hear wrassed play dead and sleep in odd positions. How else do you set up a QT to be as stable as your DT? I think I should just put my fish directly into DT and skip this QT step b/c it seems to kill the fish?

Bad