I just got some anubius in the mail today. The description just said it's anubius nana and in the picture of the plant, there was no dark green on it. All the leaves were just the same normal green color. I thought maybe some kind of algae? Does anyone know what's wrong and what I can do to help the plant?

that is slime algea i believe and those leaves are way under colored...i have bleached anubias before in a mixture of 20 -1 and it killed all algea..dip it in the bleach for 30 seconds ...after bleaching just rince it well in declorinated water rince again and again...i would not put that in my tank untill i had it bleached....

others might disagree with this but i had good results with bleaching anubias with no ill effects

Bump: also you should check for rot on the rhizome

Wtf would sell such a horrible anubias specimen? I'd demand a refund for that anubias IMMEDIATELY! If it not dead already its damn near it.
The leaves should not be so yellow/golden and wrinkled, it appears to have suffered a sever case of nitrogen deficiency. I don't know what the dark green/blue stuff is on them, probably rotted algae. Either way that plant is in horrible shape, I wouldn't even except something that awful as a raok (only paying shipping).
Take some clear photos of the rhizome and roots (flip the plant over). If the rhizome is healthy there's a small chance you can salvage the plant, but you'll loose all the current leaves. Does it have a lot of roots? Does the plant smell like rot/garbage? Does the rhizome have discolored parts or soft spots? Check the cut end where you can see the 'core' of the rhizome, any darker discoloration on that?

Somebody SOLD that??! That is terrible.

Hopefully you used paypal,if it were me,I would have filed a dispute already.No way
should you pay hard earned money for a product looking like it was grown inside a nuclear reactor.
Cheers

Thanks all - is it really that bad? That wasn't the only plant - there are about 8 anubias plants about that size - a few of the plants look totally fine with just a couple leaves with that dark green on it that I could just pull off. There's also a java fern plant that looks pretty strange to me and a big clump of java moss. Aside from the java fern looking weird in shape, the leaves look okish and the java moss looks good. All those plants came from the same seller for about $38. It seemed like a good deal :/ None of the plants smell bad - just a mild earthy smell if I put my nose in the bag. I flipped the anubias plants over and none of them seem to be rotting on the bottom. I snapped some more pics with my phone - sry for the crappy quality. I've only got the phone camera lol.


This is a java fern??















This next one is a pic of one of my java plants (my favorite actually). It's very big and fluffy. Looks much better than my phone camera says it does lol and is bigger on the other side you can't see, but anyway, it grows straight up and is all flowy. My others are the same. I figured they were all like that, but the java plant I got today is all curled over like you can see in the first two pictures. Maybe it's a different plant?



I hope these aren't so bad I can't use them Hate wasting money Just a risk I have to take sometimes I guess since I don't have a store near me that sells proper plants.

put it this way it very unlikely that if you buy more plants FROM A DIFFERENT SELLER they will be that bad....i would contest the payement.....every plant in my tank i recieved through the mail but i buy from a proper fish store ...if i was you id go this route in future...

yeah I guess I should It's not even as much about saving money as it is about getting big plants. When I order from stores I get little things - just bulbs, just roots, or barely grown plants. And they cost more than the bigger plants I can find in other places (mainly ebay). I don't like waiting to make my tank look better lol...but sick plants don't look very good :/

I am curious about that java plant though. Anyone know what's up with it? The leaves look green, and the roots look fine, but they're curled over. It just seems so weird. It's not wilted, it's like it just grew like that!

If you paid with paypal, they will not refund $ for live plants or fish (even if they arrive dead, you have proof it's dead, and will ship it back to the seller, they just won't touch it). If you used paypal but the $ was withdrawn directly from your bank account or a credit card (via paypal) go through the bank/cc to contest the payment.
I don't know what to say about that rhizome and roots for the anubais, it has roots still but I've never seen them look so bad. The java fern looks messed up too with more nitrogen deficiency, and that balled up growth is not right.

Definitely in terrible shape. They are deficient in a nutrient, but I doubt it is nitrogen since the new leaves are normal size and a nitrogen deficiency that has gone on for that long would cause new leaves to grow out small. Might be phosphorous or more likely a magnesium since it is flowering and flowering in anubias is supported by higher phosphorous levels. Either way both very rare deficiencies. I'd love to speak to the guy who sold them to you and find out how he was keeping them and what conditions, it would be quite nice to be able to add them to the deficiency database I'm working on if we can figure out what nutrient they are deficient in.

They'll recover in your tank over time if you give them proper nutrients and light so all isn't lost, but definitely not in sellable condition unless they were basically free.

Is it possible something went wrong during shipment, like a delay or excessive heat?

Excessive heat's possible. I live in Georgia. It's pretty hot here and the package was outside when I got home this afternoon. I was gone for about 3 hours, so the plants could have been sitting in the heat (although it was pouring outside) for up to 3 hours.

Bump: The balled up growth? Do you mean the java moss? I put in a picture of the big clump of java moss that came with the plants.

The damage looks too bad to have occurred during shipment. A deficiency doesn't develop overnight, and algae needs time to grow.

It doesn't look like heat/fungus/cold damage from shipping, so I doubt shipping damage. It is a nutrient deficiency from the previous owner's tank.

How long was it in the mail for? Just a few days?

Shipped on Monday, so 2 to 3 days