Beginner Gardening: Corn Plant Dying, 1 by KevinWalters

KevinWalters wrote:
Hi all!

Please excuse my ignorance about these things as I am very new to this :)
I bought a Corn Plant a couple of months back, and it is quickly dying. Almost immediately after I bought it, the leaves began to brown. I would have assumed it was due to underwatering, but the store had warned me to be careful of watering, as they only need water every 2-3 weeks. They also said they watered it for us right before it was delivered. I decided to water it about a week and a half afterwards, and have been watering it at about that rate since. Unfortunately the plant is still quickly dying, and appears to have already lost one stalk (the smallest one).

There are a number of things which I think may be hurting the plant, but I wanted to get some more experienced opinions here before I started changing anything up! (this is my first time growing a large plant)

I'm firstly worried that it's underwatered, as the soil does seem pretty dry, but I don't want to overwater it. When I water it I always make sure to wait a few minutes and then drain out any standing water in the tray. I live in NYC, so I am using tap water as I figured it was of good quality, but I have read that Corn Plants aren't very fond of tap water - would NYC tap water be good enough, or should I switch to bottled?

I am also not sure how much light to give it, since I have read differing opinions online. The store told me that it likes the dark, so we have it in a somewhat dark corner (it still receives some light, but nothing direct and definitely not too much). It is near a south-facing window, but is still somewhat blocked from that. How important is light to these guys?

I'm also concerned that temperature fluctuation may be a problem. I'm in an NYC apartment and cannot control the heat, so the temperature fluctuates a lot during the day/night. Could this be hurting it? I have the plant as far away from the heater as possible to minimize the effect.

Finally, I've been seeing a few small gnat-like bugs around the pot. I'm going to assume that they aren't any good for the plant - what's the best way for dealing with them?

Sorry there are so many questions, I'm just not really sure where to begin with this guy. I would hate to see it get any worse, even if it's pretty bad already. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

PS the plant has 3 stalks - one small one, and two larger ones

This message was edited Mar 11, 2016 5:20 PM