The bottom of the plants looks black...is that rot? How often are you watering? Is the soil wet? If you have rot at the bottom of the plant, you need to act fast.

Christopher

I think that's just the lighting. I got it a couple months ago and I think I've watered it maybe 3 times, once was a little over a week ago. The soil is dry. I don't know if it's sunburn or something else, but any advice would be appreciated!

Hi Sarah,

I'm not a very experienced cacti grower, so not sure how my advise can help.

1) May I know where was it before moving to a west facing window? For cacti, they are very sun and heat loving plants. I have mine sit in the roof all day with full sun, and they thoroughly enjoy (shown great color) than over sitting by the windowsills.

Even a west facing window might be too little light for cacti. Just my opinion.

2) The dent might seemed to be mechanical damage, do you have pets at home? Or did someone accidentally knocked into your plant?

3) I would take Chris advise into consideration, cacti are desert plants, they need porous, dry and arid substrates in their soil. Planting them in peat soil like like planting cacti in the grounds of a rainforest, absolute mismatch! If you ever do consider, please read more about dry soil here, and by dry soil, I don't mean the commercial "Cacti and Succulent Soil" rubbish you buy from Home Depot.

Happy Growing, Bernard

They were on the other side of the room from the window. My place gets a lot of light, but not bright light like they need. Unfortunately west facing windows are all I have because I'm in an apartment.

I do have a dog, but I don't think she did anything to it. It wasn't somewhere she could have easily gotten to.

I have since replanted all of my succulents and cacti after reading that the miracle grow mix I got at home depot is basically crap. I mixed in a bunch of perlite and so hopefully that will help. Also the rot (if it was that) was getting worse, so I took a knife and just cut the top part off. Hopefully that solves the problem.

Thanks for the help!

Looks like edema. Maybe? Was it really, really dry and then you watered it like a lot and then watered it even more?

Watered it very little, so I don't know why it decided to start collapsing. That part is cut off now and it seems to be doing better

It's good that it's doing better.

Maybe you weren't watering enough or often enough. Can you explain your watering regimen?

When I remembered haha, which was maybe once a month since I got it

And how exactly did you water the plant? A lot of water? A cup? A glass? Does the pot have a drain hole?

Misted so the top soil was wet. It has drain holes now after I changed out the soil and got some do bits to do holes in everything I have plants in

Cacti need a well draining potting medium, also misting is not recommended. Needs plenty of bright light, keep in a smaller pot, preferably terra cotta.

Christopher