Let the jury decide

[Bamf Comics]

I ordered what was advertised to be shipped free by Priority Mail so I got it quickly (last week) but they didn't ship the item the way they advertised. They used Ground Advantage which is slower and cheaper resulting in taking 6 days longer to arrive than expected by the due date for last Wednesday.

The pictures in the listing show large leaf, clean aquarium looking presentation with thick bushy root systems, some of them even turned upside down looking like the perfect place for baby guppies to hide in. here's some pictures from the actual listing.

 

[Bamf Comics]

Now here's what showed up six days late that I don't think looks anything like what was advertised. He's claiming they are baby giant duckweeds and this mess does not appear to have the same leaf shape, size or bushy root system. Am I overreacting?

 

[GaryE]

You bought duckweed? It's like buying rats with bubonic plague. I throw away pounds of that stuff every month, and yet, it always manages to mess things up.

That looks like the usual mix of duckweed sizes. It can grow long roots if the nitrate levels in the tanks are low. It makes itself ugly in different ways depending on lighting and nutrient load. It also doesn't provide good fry cover, as livebearer fry don't sit right under the surface enough for it to work. Give it up as a bad job and get guppy grass or hornwort, with more complex structures. That is, if you can give it up. One tiny leftover piece and it's off and running again.

 

[Magnum Man]

I deal a lot with Giant Duckweed ( Spirodela polyrhiza ), and the baby plants do look a lot like Common Duckweed ( Lemna Minor ) but in my experience, it would be challenging to separate the babies from the mother plants, it just would not be worth the extra work, so your sample should have both mothers and babies in it... they don't look like aquarium propagated plants, looks to me, more like a scoop out of a pond, & what you get, you get... the good news, is you may also be happy with some of the plants that are mixed in, as they grow... the bad news is, you are more likely to get pests, and it can be really hard to separate the plants, until they mature more, and even then, near impossible to get any Lemna Minor out...

I inherited some water meal ( that is even smaller than Lemna Minor ), in with some Asian Watermoss

 

[MaloK]

Scale bars represent 5 mm

 

[Bamf Comics]

You bought duckweed? It's like buying rats with bubonic plague. I throw away pounds of that stuff every month, and yet, it always manages to mess things up.

That looks like the usual mix of duckweed sizes

That's why I selected this guys listing. I've had the small leaf stuff take over small ponds and tanks before. I used to get some inclusions that grew small clusters out from the sides that had bigger overall leafs. Goldfish and shubunkins used to pick off the small stuff once leaving me with nothing but a pond of the larger stuff. this mess of mix looks nothing like what his pictures displayed and nothing with root systems like the one he showed flipped un the picture below.

Bad thing is I just had customers in that are throwing away red root floaters and others I could have gotten some from if they'd showed up a few hours earlier. They said they'd check back this weekend in case more headaches occur.

E-Bay's handling the case so far for me.