First thing that anyone here will tell you, is that your soil is not okay. Don't know if you replanted them yourself of this is from the store. But there's way too much organic stuff in there like peat, twigs, bark... The easiest and best way for you to repot them is to make a 50/50 mix with Cactus & succulent soil and perlite, plus some small decorative rocks on top to prevent perlite float. It will allow much better drainage and should make your plants happier right away. Also, are your plants grown indoor? If it is, make sure it's at a brightest place possible, and few hours of direct sun is recommended.

I can only speak for myself. I live in Wisconsin, zone 5. Once the temps start to hit the upper 40's/low 50's consistently, the plants come inside. I have a tall south facing window with a built-in planter box where I put anything that I am rooting and most of my aloes. Everything else goes into the basement on wire shelves in a corner under lights. If you go to a big box store, you can find fluorescent light fixtures (like garage style lights) for pretty cheap. I have two 4 ft. fixtures that I picked up for about $10 each. I mounted them to the ceiling rafters and put them on a timer. You can use these same fixtures in any room in the house (or apartment, like I once did) by mounting plant hanger hooks to the ceiling and then using s hooks to hang the lights by the enclosed chains. It sounds like you may have room to crowd them in one or two window sills. That should be sufficient this year. Just be forewarned that these plants have an addictive quality about them and you will probably need to get lights if your collection grows! As long as hot air isn't blowing directly on the plants, or there is no air movement in the room, there shouldn't be a problem with indoor temps. Do you know what plants you have? You should research to see if they are winter or summer growers and that will guide you with how much watering you will be doing over the winter months. Nancy

How about this: 4' x 18" metal wire shelving You can hang at least two and possibly 3 2-bulb fluorescent light fixtures off each shelf, for 4 to 6 bulbs per shelf. Maybe even 8 - Home Depot used to carry a 4.25" wide 2-bulb T-8 fixture for around $15. I'm not sure if they still carry it since I think it is the one that was recalled this past spring. If you can still get those, you MIGHT be able to get 4 of those per shelf - it's a total of 17" in width, that should just barely fit between the posts. They have another fixture for about the same price but I'm not sure how wide it is. I have cheap Lights of America fixtures from Valdemart. They are 7" wide so 2 of those will fit. Lowe's carries a 2-bulb T8 fixture for around ummmm ... I think it's $18 or so. It is 5.5" wide, so only 3 of those will fit. Yes, I am talking about T8 fixtures here. Yes, they're not as glow-y as T5s. But they are much cheaper, and you can overdrive them very easily (if you make sure to get something with a ballast in them that CAN be overdriven). That means avoiding anything that has a magnetic ballast, like the ultra cheap $12 T-12 2-bulb fixtures both HD and Lowe's are selling these days. Google "Overdriving T8 fluorescents" for details, or I can post some links I have. T8s are just tons cheaper than T5s so even if you have to cram more of them in there you'd still come out ahead. Especially if you take the leap into overdriving. Home Despot also has a 48"x18" shelf unit available, it has an extra shelf (6 to Lowe's 5) but it costs more: Home Despot's 6 shelf 48" wide 18" deep shelving unit The extra shelf could come in handy. I know they're narrower by 6", but they're wider by a foot so ... for whatever that's worth. The space I have is only 21" deep so that's my limit. I can put 2 standard size flats next to each other on these shelves and they'll hang over by about an inch on each side. You can fit 4 standard flats on each 48x18 shelf whether you put them along or across the shelves. Seems to me a 21" to 22" width would be ideal for growers, but that's not how they make 'em. If you can afford the T5s, by all means, go for it. But T8s in overdrive will get you there too.

If you have no mold than there's no need to uncover yet. By about 2-3 month mark is when I uncover. It honestly just depends on what's going on in the container. My Ferocactus are uncovered now. Along with a couple other containers that had mold growing. As soon as I uncover the mold stops. I just have to remember to keep moist everyday. Instead of having them covered and not having to worry about them as much. I still have three covered. I will uncover those last three in a month or so. I don't like to keep them covered longer than three months because I feel like they start to need air circulation. Everybody does it different I'm sure. Whatever works:). As long as you keep them moist with some filtered light, they should be fine. All my seedlings are in a north west frosted bathroom window. This would never be enough light for most mature cactus, but the seedlings don't need direct sun. You can see the window in the above pic. That's how much light they get till about 3:30-4:00pm then as the sun is going down they get some sun. I don't know if you've seen this YouTube video, but this guy is germinating Astro seeds. I get the vibe he doesn't keep them covered long at all, but you can see he keeps them very moist because once you uncover the water evaporates pretty quickly:). Video:)