I think my anubias dried out during transport. Will it recover?

[Supermassive]

The last anubias petite I had got rhizome rot and I had to remove around 90% of it. I got another one to replace it but all the leaves started to turn yellow and die within a couple days. Its been about 1-2 weeks and almost every leaf is completely gone. The ones that are left have large yellow patches and brown dead patches  I think it dried out during transport. Either that or I killed it with hydrogen peroxide but I only sprayed it and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes and I was spraying with water too.

The rhizome still looks very healthy. Its bright green, almost looks white in some spots. Could it recover from that even if it has zero leaves?

I can add some pictures if its necessary but all the leaves are dead/dying and the rhizome looks normal so idk if the pictures would show anything.

[Guppysnail]

On 1/4/2024 at 1:37 PM, Supermassive said:

Either that or I killed it with hydrogen peroxide but I only sprayed it and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes and I was spraying with water too.

This is my guess. Peroxide is damaging to plants. 
 

Reverse Respiration is much gentler on plants. 
 

Use a freshly opened bottle of seltzer and submerge your new plant for 5-9 hours.  If you are trying to kill algae 9-12 hours. 

 

[jwcarlson]

20 minutes of peroxide probably did it.  If the rhizome is OK, it might recover.  I destroyed my biggest anubias about a year ago with peroxide.  It survived, but took a year to get anywhere near what it was.

[Supermassive]

@Guppysnail @jwcarlson Well that sucks. I thought it was pretty standard to disinfect plants with hydrogen peroxide. I guess I misunderstood wherever I heard that.

I've seen the reverse respiration method on the forum. Ill take this as my queue to try it. Ill get some seltzer water before I get more plants.

Lesson learned. Thanks for the info.

[Guppysnail]

On 1/4/2024 at 2:34 PM, Supermassive said:

I thought it was pretty standard to disinfect plants with hydrogen peroxide.

A small amount of hydrogen peroxide in a bucket of water is the method I’ve heard used. It is still harmful.  There are microscope images of the damage it does on the Reverse Respiration article and webpage. 

[jwcarlson]

On 1/4/2024 at 1:34 PM, Supermassive said:

@Guppysnail @jwcarlson Well that sucks. I thought it was pretty standard to disinfect plants with hydrogen peroxide. I guess I misunderstood wherever I heard that.

I've seen the reverse respiration method on the forum. Ill take this as my queue to try it. Ill get some seltzer water before I get more plants.

Lesson learned. Thanks for the info.

I've had bad luck with RR, personally.  But with anubais I've never had RR cause a single problem at all.  They're pretty robust plants.

[Pepere]

On 1/4/2024 at 2:39 PM, jwcarlson said:

I've had bad luck with RR, personally. 

Mostly it has worked fine for me.  But dont try it on hornwort that gets algae infected.  I had Hornwort simply disintegrate from a seltzer soak.  I simply find a clean part of hornwort and use that to make more now, and discard the rest…

 

And I had a large batch of Scarlet Temple infected with Algae that got seriously stunted by an overnight Seltzer Soak.  All the leaves fell off the stems and it has taken over a month to start recovering…

[Tanked]

On 1/4/2024 at 1:37 PM, Supermassive said:

Either that or I killed it with hydrogen peroxide but I only sprayed it and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes and I was spraying with water too.

The rhizome still looks very healthy. Its bright green, almost looks white in some spots. Could it recover from that even if it has zero leaves?

Unless your Anubia was actually 'dry' when it arrived that isn't likely to be an issue.  For me, Anubia has proven to be temperamental and remained dormant for months.  I would treat the rhizome as you would normally, and just wait.

Peroxide begins working in seconds, so If you were spraying straight peroxide, and straight water separately, for 20 minutes, it is up for debate as to what happened.  Soaking in a 50/50 mix for 5-10 minutes would probably have been better.  I have done whole tank treatments with no ill effects.