the only thing i can think of after reading everything is that planting the new plants uncapped a bit of the soil and released something very deadly that does not give effects to a fish that are easy to see. guppy's in a lot of cases can be more hardy then cardinel tetras and plecos as you said can be bullet proof.
yet this is the only thing i can think of on the spot i have no idea what could have been released from the soil. this is just my opinion of what went wrong
this is my input to this interesting mystery.