Salvaging anubias

[David Marshburn <marshbur at cs_unc.edu>]

Hi folks,

I recently received a shipment of plants from an online aquatic plant
shop, and all were rotten save for the anubias (var. nana, btw).  They
weren't just badly wilted, they were nasty-stinking-putrid rotten.  The
newspaper they were wrapped in may have joined in the rot-fest.  Anyway,
the anubias had some bent and broken stems and some crushed leaves, but
was mostly intact.  I'm wondering if I can salvage this anubias?

I first rinsed the plants well under tap water and then gave them a bleach
soak (maybe 2 Tbs in a half gallon of water).  After another thorough
rinsing with tap water, I trimmed a few ends that were slightly gone bad.
I've been soaking them since Monday (now Thursday).  I started soaking
them in aquarium water, but switched to tap water.  I had to have another
trimming session yesterday on two plants that had developed further
softness on the ends of the rhizome.

Is there anything else I should do to try and save them (or that I should
have done differently)?

Should the leaves that were crushed or folded be removed or let be?

One very small specimen has developed rot on its rhizome almost up to its
single remaining leaf.  If I'm forced to trim further (and the rot hasn't
progressed all the way down the center of the rhizome already), can this
survive without leaves?  Will a leafless anubias rhizome sprout new
leaves?

Finally, any ideas how long I should wait before adding them to an
aquarium?  My main concern is that nothing funky from the rotting plants
or newspaper get into the tank.

By the way, the online shop is replacing the entire shipment of plants
(thank goodness).

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As an aside, I've tried going through the archive for advice on this, but
couldn't direct the search well enough to get any result.  One type of
advanced search capability that would be very helpful is to be able to
have the search ignore the monthly index of message subjects.  Maybe this
could be a default, since the index pages don't list anything that's not
in the messages.

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Thanks!
-David