Cloudy water and dead plants

I removed a couple of plants that had chronic dead tip disease (a disease I named myself lol ), where the tips of the leaves turn brown and fall of and plug up the filters. A few days later, a long lasting bacteria bloom is noticeably diminished. Can dead plant matter cause a bacteria bloom to continue? I ended up pulling out half of my plants, and the water is noticeably clearer today.

Anything decomposing in the tank can cause or extend bacterial blooms. That includes dead fish, dead plants, uneaten fish food, fish poop, dead snails, or even dead algae from algae killing chemicals.

Let me try a slightly different tack: how much dead plant matter do you think would do this? IOW, would one small piece of dead leaf to this, or would it take a significant amount to keep tank water cloudy? The plants I removed were 90% alive, and 10% dead - most leaf tips were dead and were decompsing. I'm thinking there is some sort of balance between some dead plant matter, and too much dead plant matter, but lack the experience to know where that balance is.

Changing about 20 percent of the water every week should solve your problem. Live plants usually help keep the aquarium chemistry in balance, but too many fish or too much food will upset the balance.