Yikes! Does anyone know what happened?

[Cara]

2 weeks ago I did what I call a deep clean on my 36g. Not the 1st time. I do about every 6m. I siphoned off 10g. Vacuumed out 7.5g...added back the siphoned 10g...added 10g of dechlorinated tap water to the correct temperature. Now...my plants are all melting. any insights would be greatly appreciated.

The plants were all years old. Sorry but I don't remember what they are. It was b4 I started actually recording what plants I was buying.

I did the same process on a 2nd 36g last week and all of those plants seem fine

 

[Fishfur]

Looks like you have a lot of crypts and they can sometimes be cranky & sulky and react like this to a change in their environment.

The good news is that I can still see healthy leaves and the chances are excellent that the roots are all fine, so given some time they’ll grow back.

I would trim off the melted leaves but other than that it’s just a matter of waiting for them to bounce back.

 

[3Fishnight]

2 weeks ago I did what I call a deep clean on my 36g. Not the 1st time. I do about every 6m. I siphoned off 10g. Vacuumed out 7.5g...added back the siphoned 10g...added 10g of dechlorinated tap water to the correct temperature. Now...my plants are all melting. any insights would be greatly appreciated.

The plants were all years old. Sorry but I don't remember what they are. It was b4 I started actually recording what plants I was buying.

I did the same process on a 2nd 36g last week and all of those plants seem fine

Sometimes with a deep clean you can disturb your bacteria colony too much and that will result in a spike of ammonia and nitrite. This is especially true when you clean the substrate and filter bio media. A good general rule of thumb is to clean 1/3 of the substrate at a time and clean the filter on a different day. Not saying thats what happened but it is possible. Like fishfur said a big change in environment especially makes the cryps mad. Instead of a deep clean try spacing your cleaning out a week or 2 giving the bacteria time to bounce back. Happens to the best of us.

 

[Cara]

Instead of a deep clean try spacing your cleaning out a week or 2 giving the bacteria time to bounce back. Happens to the best of us.

So I usually clean this tank every 3 weeks doing a 30% wc and some vacuuming of the gravel. When i siphon off 10g and then do the 30% wc I'm able to get under the rocks and decos. It's a tall tank and I found that was the best way. And then I add back the 10 I siphoned. I didn't clean the filter. So I'm thinking I was too aggressive and they got mad at me I gave them some plant food and hopefully they'll bounce back