Hi, deza!
I just read the thread and its replies. If it's any relief, I would be going mad too, every thing that does not go according to what I believe to be standard makes me wonder if the whole thing got screwed up, so I totally understand.
I did not know they could go on for a week, so it's great to hear what smokey had to say about it:
This should be of relief.
I will explain what I did, which is the only thing I can do for you (and it does not mean that yours will not sprout at all if you didn't do the same thing as me. Remember, I'm the noobest of the noobs).
1. I placed 8 seeds in between two papel towers inside two dishes. 36 hours later, 6 of them were showing the radicle (approximately the same size as the seed itself). In another 6 hours, another seed showed radicle. One of them did not make it (they say 7 out of 8 it's great, but it made me a bit sad, actually, since I see them as a family).
2. Then, I inserted them at the same distance you did below surface (with the radicle pointing down, which I saw in Jorge Cervantes DVD, Ultimate Grow I, although I don't know if this is really necessary —I don't think nature is so delicate puting seeds—
. After placing every seed, I watered them with water and root stimulator and bottled water until saturation (water comes out from the bottom). I put the
3. 36 hours after planting, 2 out of 7 had sprouted. The rest showed up consecutively within 24-36 hours, I would say. So, basically, it took 72 hours for them to sprout.
The closet where I placed the pots since I planted them was located in a room with high relative humidity (65%) and a temperature ranging from 19.5 to 21.4 ºC. I placed the pots under 2 poor studying lights (aprox. 40 W each) all the time until they sprouted. Since then, I gave them 18 hour light and 6 of darkness.
What I would do is to follow smokey advise and wait (after all, if people have to wait up to 1 week sometimes, why should anything be wrong with your seeds?). And if they don't show up then look for them in the soil and see what's going on, like massah said.
Also, I saw the pics and at least on the picture you took, soil seems to be flooded (surface is shining). I'm guesing you took the picture after watering. Otherwise, they do not need to be flooded to sprout (I don't even know if that's good). As I said, after planting I just sataurated the pots, let them get rid of excess water through the pots' draining and wait.
By the way, when I watered them for the first time after planting the seeds, I poured the water from the bottle with little care and one of the seeds sprouted near the edge of the pot (I am a brute). And that was the first seed that sprouted, so imagine me thinking for 12-24 hours that maybe I had drowned the other seeds deep in the soil... My point is: we worry too much, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but at least we should laugh at ourselves for doing it
