I forgot to mention I'm in Zone 5B and the seedlings are planted inside containers indoors. My soil mix consists of cactus mix,perlite, and pine bark so it doesn't seem to be a over watering problem it drains really well. i did see some fungus gnat larvae but who knows.

MHG,

If only ONE out of say DOZEN died, then probably over watering is not the cause. Although you can over water in any medium.

Describe your set up more and post a picture if you can.

Seysonn

Hi MHG,

I used MG cactus mix and never again, it did more harm than good to my seedlings actually stunted them, and I find the added nutes are so low you have to fertilize sooner than the other verities of MG. I also found that when cactus mix dries it dries rock hard and figured it was to hard for pepper roots. I took 1/2 them out even as small seedlings and repotted in MG orchid mix cut with MG organic choice and compared to the other 1/2 I left in the cactus mix and they outperformed them and eventually those in the cactus mix stopped growing and died.

IIRC cactii like alkaline soil. Peppers don't.

Dennis

Check the base of the stem at soil level, does it show any signs of browning there, or look like its pinched in? I'm betting so, since you say you're doing indoor containers this time of year.

Read up on "damping off", its a fungus from the soil that attacks the stems of seedlings. Happens when the top of the soil is too damp, which can be really hard to gauge correctly when a seedling's roots are so small they need more constant watering.

Best remedy I've found is hydrogen peroxide spray, 3% concentration (what you find in the pharmacy section as a topical antiseptic, the brown bottle stuff that fizzes and burns like hell on a cut).

Just give your seedlings a quick spray or two around the base every day or two until they get bigger and you should be fine.

Post a foto.