yes, I have used bleach for 3-4 minutes on anubias type plants with no
problem at all. Interesting about the crypts. I have never lost a cryp due
to transplanting however some months back I changed all my substrate to
flourite and due to some BBA in my tank I decided to bleach all my plants. I
did a 3 minute dip and every crypt melted down and very few came back and
like you mention I was fully expecting them to grow back out, just never
happened.

Crypts are odd little things. They can use nitrates directly while every (?)
other plant has to convert it to ammonia first.

The leaves themseleves are unimportant, the rhizome is everything. I once
forgot about some crypts in a bucket for eighteen months; they had some
newspaper on top of the to prevent evaporation and were in about 3 inches
of water. When I found them there were some slightly moist newspapers
and a few buts of rhizome. I figured they were dead but planted them
anyway and they grew faster then I've ever seen crypts grow making me
wonder if this was how they're supposed to be grown. Moreso you can
ship crypts like killifish eggs by cutting off th leaves and fine
white roots ansd just mailing the rhizomes in some damp peat moss.

They're also cold hardier than almost any other plant. I've had C. albida
survive a light frost outdoors - the leaves all were destroyed but they
grew back when brought indoors. In the middle of this winter (it's March!
Yay!) I was shipped soe Bolbitis, Anubias, clover, java moss and crypt
rhizomes. The only thigns that were't killed by the cold was the moss
and the crypt rhizoe which are now healthy plants. So, while on the face
of it they appear "delicate" because of the "melt" issue IME they're
hardier that almost any plant, even anubias the plant you can take
a wire brush to to remove algae (well, almost).

To this day I do not know why they melt. Horst and Kipper sayit's due
to high nitrates and perhaps they're right but they must mean absurdly
high nitrate as a month of 200 ppm no3 didn't faze mine a bit. Maybe it's
something besides nitrates.

Also, if a tank is (badly) neglected and turns in to a stinking fetid
green-blue/green mess, when it's cleaned out I invariably find the crypts
doing better than normal. It's almost like they thrive on abuse.

Now, things I've found that cause poor growth in crypts (although
I can't say I've ever seen one actually die from these are)

1) too cold. balansae tolerate cold water well, the rest don't seem
to perform well unless the tank is in the normal aquarium range.

2) underfed/lit. crypts have a rep for being shade loving slow growing
plants. this is nonsense as they are found both in shade and full
sun in the wild. With sufficient light, nutrients and (optionally)
co2/flourish they are not particularly slow growing. Except for
C. ciliata :-). You absolutely do not need co2 to grow great crypts
however.

They are (very!) heavy feeders which is why you often see statements
like "do not put crypts in a tank that is not well established". I've
finally figured out that what this means is "if you don't have a decent
amount of fish waste locked up in your substrate your plants will use up
the energy stored in their rhizome, run out then stall". Some people
grow them putting them in tanks that have some soil or even manure
under fine beach sand and even in a new tank they do well; this way.

So, if I had to guess I'd say it wasn't the bleach that killed your
plants it was lack of nutrients. I can't know for sure though without
knowig more about or seeing your tank, but as I said I've never lost
a crypt from bleach.

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