box to hot? soil? wtf they're not growing

ok so ive grown once before, had some issues and didnt get to flower those plants so just wasted time n money. Anyways now im growing, well trying to grow, again and its not working out for me. I never thought growing would be this hard seeing how my first time every seed i planted sprouted. so heres my setup, a 18 gallon tote box with 4 27 watt cfls and one 42. I put in a 4 in fan from walmart, the massie ones, for exhaust. a comp fan in there to circulate the air, pretty sure its not nessicary seeing how the other fan sucks the top down. pretty powerful for that box. and my soil is mg, didnt want to use mg but there wasn't much else to pick from at the time. so yeah my problem is i water the seed and i wake up the next morning and the dirt is crusted hard. idk what to do about that, planted 12 seeds and none sprouted. I think it was cause the dirt is to hard but im not sure what causes that. i dont have a thermo but that fan sucks the hot air out pretty easily.

So i water everyday because the soil turns to rock, the ventilation is awesome so im pretty sure its not a heat issue. more water? better soil? people grow in mg all the time tho idk whats wrong with mine hopefully someone else has fixed this problem and if so please inform me how to do the same.
thanks

Don't use the lights before the sprouts break ground. You're drying out the top of the soil and killing them before they get a chance to grow. Sounds like dryness might be a problem in your box so you might want to leave a bowl of water to evaporate in with the plants to keep them from drying out too quickly. Good luck.

thanks man, im gonna turn the lights off now and put a cup of water or two when the lights come on.

Yup, exactly what the other person said. Try sprouting your seeds without all the lights and fans. Just some pots of moist soil in a warm place. No need for lights and fans until you actually have some plants.

I start my seeds on the kitchen counter and once they've sprouted I put them under lights with a fan.

I just reread your post so before reading the rest of this, here's some advice. The humidity of your box is controlled by your exhaust. If you don't have a thermo, go to walmart/lowes and get a cheap white thermometer that has a barometer at the bottom. Put it next to your plants and check the reading after an hour. If it's below 50% your fan is just too strong and is going to suck your soil dry. Sprouts need to stay very moist; try taking clear plastic dixie cups and placing them over the soil upside down, or turning off the fan like mentioned earlier during sprouting. If the soil is dry every time you check it, you need to water more often. I grew my sprouts in 3 inch coco pots, which doesn't retain water at all. Because of that I had to add a little water several times a day to keep em wet. Onward to the rest of my tips for early stages of growing.

Couple things to keep an eye on. First, make sure your seeds stay moist while germinating. I like to germ mine between wet paper towels on a plate that I keep in a dark closet. I check on them twice a day to make sure they are moist and to look for tap roots. My friend tried germ'in this way but forgot to check his seeds to see if they were wet; lost about 10 seeds when they dried up. Just be careful to plant them once the tap root is ~1 inch, any longer and they will start weaving in and out of the paper towel and it can be tough to unthread it without damaging the root hairs.

2nd. Once you put your seed, taproot down, into your hole it needs to have a nice path to sprout. I only sprinkle a light amount of soil on top to ensure light isn't penetrating, then add water. If you have a lot of sprouts and a few of them aren't showing, don't be afraid to poke around in the soil and see whats up. I saved one plant that way by catching it early; the soil was too packed to push through so it had bent and started growing back down. I just moved the soil and pushed the cotyledons out so they could get some light, worked like a charm.

3rd. Your sprouts need to be all up in your CFLs as they start growing. The wattages you're using give off very low heat, so don't be afraid to even let your sprouts touch them. Even having your sprouts 8 inches below your lights can cause them to grow to tall and die. Again, had friends who lost plants to this.

thanks everyone
im pretty sure all the seeds dried up and died and now i have like 20 seeds germing but i checked on them tonight. on has a taproot but the rest arent doing anything but maybe molding, they have white specks on them. i think im gonna ditch the tub tho and build a small plywood box. fan is more than likely way to strong idk its just bad and aggrivating to plant over 15 seeds and nothing show. so now i only have one with a taproot and im out of seeds. and green which is a bitch but hopefully ill get some nice seedy bud this weekend. did i really just say that? im going crazy now i know haha yall take it easy