I have a somewhat tricky question since I've been probably messing around with my Pachira a bit too much recently and don't know what to do, so I'll post my question first and then give the history behind it.

QUESTION:

Is it better to leave on the unhealthy brown spotted leaves for the time being and then wait until healthy new growth to remove them since there are few leaves left on the tree or should I prune them right now?

CONTEXT:

I've had a Pachira for 3 years. It has always been an indoor plant, set next to a bright window. I repotted it initially into some orchid mix and perlite. I let it grow pretty much unchecked for several years and it was doing fine with watering once a week.

We moved to a new apartment and many of the leaves began to brown at the tips. It is near an east facing window, gets bright light for maybe 4 hours a day but otherwise indirect light. I figured it was overwatering so I cut back on watering to once every 2 weeks. The new growth was healthy so I started to fertilize and I figured I would prune it back a bit. At the beginning of June I pruned about 25% of the foliage because it was getting a bit too big.

I waited several weeks and then repotted into a faster draining mix of 1:1:1 fine bark/pumice/perlite and sifted out all the dust. I root pruned about 1/3 of the roots. In 10 days or so since the repot only a few leaves have yellowed and dropped off. The new leaves that were developing did slow drastically though.

Several of the leaves have had brown spots for a while and I figured that might have been due to the overwatering. However, now I am not sure if this is some sort of fungus or not. I took pictures of the brown spots below with pictures of my tree overall as well as the potting mix for reference.

I'm concerned that the brown spots are fungus and I know the only real solution is to prune those affected leaves. However, since I pruned the foliage recently, the tree is very sparse. I also root pruned and repotted shortly after that. I am worried that if I remove the brown spotted leaves, it may further shock the tree that I have already put through a lot recently and it may not recover. One of the braids only has leaf nodes with brown spots remaining on it, so pruning those would leave that one bare.

NOW, finally to my question(s):

Is it better to leave on the unhealthy brown spotted leaves for the time being and then wait until healthy new growth prior to removing the unhealthy leaves since there are few leaves left on the tree? Or should I go ahead and prune off the unhealthy ones right now?

Thanks in advance for your advice! I have read many many threads on Pachira and realize I probably made several mistakes but am looking to do what's best for the long term health of my tree.

Brown leaf spots

Overall tree