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Hi Everyone!

I have an Elaeagnus pungens from last year. It did well all the time, nowdays I noticed that it had some yellow leaves (but there are new leaves also). Today I checked the roots and I was shocked! The tree was in Fuji lava, but as I see now, the water could sit in the corners of the pot (if had two large holes originally in the middle). So, the tree has root rot, and a very little amount of roots stayed...I have put now into a mix of perlite and zeolit, into a plastic “fruit filter dish” with a lot of holes.

Any chance to survive? And should I prune some of the leaves now?

What you should do is place it outside where it belongs.

I don’t think the root rot by the excess water in the pot is related to be outside or indoors.

Lazac85 wrote: I don’t think the root rot by the excess water in the pot is related to be outside or indoors.

... is it? Or did the roots started to rot because the tree didn’t take up water anymore because it was dying from being inside? Do live roots rot because they are in water, or do dead roots rot in water...? Something to think about .
The point is: keeping trees inside is in 99% of the time the cause of the problem. Trees die inside, they need direct sunlight, ventilation,... In your case, a recovering tree that is already struggling had the best chance of survival outside, where it needs to be.

I hope it’s visible on these photos how much excess water stayed in the pot, after each watering (the glass is 0.3 liters). With this slack water, without a drainage layer (as it was originally potted) I think the roots would started to rot even outside in -15 Celsius at winter (as this species is not frost hardy).

There is a big difference in keeping your plant outside in -15, and placing it inside in your heated dry living rooms. Your eleagnus is frost hardy to about -5, so you should leave it outside all year, and protect it from heavy frost by placing it in a frostfree place ( garden shed, garage, ....) . Trees need direct sunlight, ventilation,...
Btw, a drainage layer is a garden myth, water does not move from finer to coarser substrate. Compare it with a sponge full of water, if placed upon some coarser pebbles or rocks, does the water start flowing from the sponge?

In the room where it is, there is about 18-20 Celsius, with 60-70 % humidity. All of my other (around 50) trees are doing well, and also this one did. The main problem was not the missing drain layer, but the wrong placed holes in the pot. If I flipped the pot to side, then a lot of excess water flooded out from the pot, even half an hour after watering. That was the problem for the roots.

Do you have 50 trees inside?

48 exactly. All tropical of course.

Finally someone that can keep trees alive inside... well inside is relative I guess with a humidity of around 60-70.
Can you tell us a bit more about your setup and your location?
I am asking because 99% of the help my tree is dying questions here come from first time owners that keep their ( sub or - tropical) species inside ( in their living rooms) and they die very fast.