From the photos and your description I would say definitely too much water and possibly not enough light.

Since you said you aren't watering that often but the soil is staying wet I would do a few things if they were mine.

Reduce the size of the pot - it is too large for plants that small - get something more proportionate for the size plant and its root system. The extra pot room without roots to take up all that space keeps the soil wet longer.

Don't let pots sit in / on saucers full of water - I can't tell from your photos but since they are indoors it's more likely they are on saucers and if so, that will continue to wick up moisture if they aren't emptied. If not then that's good.

Add even more perlite. This will help increase your drainage so the soil won't stay damp as long.

When the leaves droop I don't know if they will recover - if the plant health improves they might, they might be too far gone though, hard to say. The leaves becoming flat, my best guess is they may be stretching for light.

Yes to everything elucas said, they look too wet...I would add some grit - but that is JMO...

And light is definitely a factor. What direction does your window face and how far from the window are the plants? Plants kept inside actually get more direct sun in the winter than in the summer due to the tilt of the earth's axis. During the summer, my south window barely gets any direct sun inside due to the sun being more overhead. I live in the Northern hemisphere.

Well, April, I used to live south of you in Rockford. You are doing better than I did because your plants are still alive! LOL You know when the forecast says 10-20% chance of sunshine, it's hard to get enough light to your plants. I didn't know about plant lights back then, so I just gave up trying to grow succulents.

One way to check on the water in your soil is with a skewer, chopstick or even a toothpick. Insert it to the middle of the pot, wait a minute and pull it out to see if it is damp. If not obvious, placed against your cheek, it will feel cool or cold when damp. If it is damp, don't water. You want to test the soil down where the roots are. Often the top of the soil feels dry, but it is not dry down below.

My plants are in the sun all year round, but when I transplant they can get a little droopy for a week or two. That's why I don't remove pups or babies until they are pretty good size and have a head start. Just my preference, but bigger babies have more energy stored up for the transplant.

Do you have other succulents? Supplemental lighting may be good for you. I'll let others advise you on that.

Good luck!

How far away from the window are they? Even 6 inches makes a big difference in the amount of available light.

Also, I use the skewer method and water when I can rub my fingers together on the end of the skewer then against eachother and if the dirt crumbles dry instead of feeling moisture.

I've wondered the same thing but never found a definitive answer. Have they recently been moved? If not and they've been getting adequate light, they are just stretching due to the drought conditions and just need some time to build up some root structure to help ease the dehydration stress. It's a fine line between dehydrating and overwatering at this stage. I rot more plants this way than probably any other way: rooting cuttings/leaves/pups at this vulnerable stage.

Rina may be right about the water stress. Is it possible the bottom of the pot is still very wet for a longer time than is appropriate? If these were given to me like this, I would, right now, dump everything out and take the plants out and look at their roots. You can pot them all together and crowd them into one or two smaller pots. I had a bunch that I pulled out of an overcrowded pot and I stuck them into this pot. It doesn't hold enough water (or for long enough? Not sure which) in my opinion.

There's one in here that has a lot less roots than the others (not in there as tightly with the tug test) and it's turning a gross translucent color like that. But your pot is really big and those babies are much deeper inside and it's also mostly peat based and mine is mostly perlite in a /*edit/ *clay pot. It dries out so quickly.

Editted to fix "clay pot"

It's actually a rather deep standard size 8 inch clay pot. Maybe it's a 10 inch pot, I'll have to measure.

I suppose it could be possible it stays wet longer... I'll make sure to dump the excess water as soon as it is done draining. I did leave one of those pots in the window, I did come to the conclusion that the redness is because of too much light, as the others I removed from the bright light have started to slowly get their green color back. I will be closely watching this one, as it sits out of direct light. But I think I will definitely do what you mentioned, re-potting all the small ones into the same pot, just not a pot as tall as the ones they're in now..

I let mine be red, it's saying it's getting as much light as it can get without burning. That's exactly how much light they should be getting, IMO.

Yours were a very light green, very full of water. I had one stretched out like that but it was much more "hard" and less squishy looking than your plants, not so see-through. However, the normal pup that's just in very intense light and is newly transplanted and is having a harder time than the rest of its siblings because it didn't have the root structure adequate to support it or something happened with my substrate or watering or I didn't bury the roots deep enough. So many different variables. But I digress.

In conclusion, maybe that's in these guys' future and it's just a process (hardening up and becoming more vinyl-like).

I didn't even think about that. I was just reading a diary/journal entry and apparently, last Summer, they sat outside and some got red, and then redder, and then burned, dying... So I wonder if I was subconsciously telling myself to take it out of the light before that happens again..idk, my mind is weird...I mean it kind of makes sense tho.

Anyways...

Full of water is good. Is 'squishy' good, or should they be 'harder'? 'Not so see-through'... being see through is bad for aloe...right?, it means they aren't getting enough water? or too much..?

((sorry if these questions seem dumb, sometimes I have a harder time understanding things, so I ask more questions (usually resulting in people getting angry with me)))

I hope you figure out your Aloe.

Also, what is the plant/Cactus by your Aloe??

And thank you so much for all of your help, I greatly appreciate it.

Well, they look like they are about to burst (not typically desirable in plants) and I believe this is why they look very see through.

Here is an updated picture of mine. I just watered them today. Many of these plants are barely burried so they don't get access to as much water as the ones more toward the center and deeper in the pot. They are all rather hard looking because they are dehydrated from lack of water. If I had to guess, yours are dehydrated from too much water? I'm just trying to feel it out, understand what the plants are telling us. I think we make a good pair, you and I ;)

They are red because they are getting a lot of sun and not much access to water to help cool them down. The red color is from anthocyanins that act as a sunscreen. They are in a very gritty mix and a clay pot so opposite conditions than your plants are in.

Without flash:

With flash;

April sounds like you are in good hands! mine looked like yours in Dec. but it's starting to turn around. Make sure there are no other leaves blocking or hanging above the aloe. Don't be afraid to leave it dry for a few extra days or even until the plant shows you it's thirsty. In a few months they'll be healthy and strong. please update this summer so we know how they turned out:)

Outside stressing nicely

Definitely don't want them to burst. Too much water, then maybe I'll do what Matt said, try to leave it dry for a few extra days, or until they start telling they're thirsty. I think I'll pick the pots up before watering, that way I can get a feel for how heavy they are when dry., like you said trying to feel it out, understand what they're saying to us. I think I'll add another cup or two of perlite when I repot all of them. Thanks, I do too!

I'm gonna have to do my research on anthocyanins. (Sometimes I wish they would naturally be red like what yours looks like without flash.) I'm sure you could sell quite a bit, I would, but I wanna get them healthy, well healthier than they are right now. (I have a thread/post about my Dieffenbachia's, so right now I have quite a bit of them, if I can get them all to survive I think I'll try and sell some of them) (and sadly I'm kinda selfish when it comes to my plants and animals... I feel bad that I'm like that, so I'm trying to change that).

The Huernia grandiflora looks awesome, think I'm gonna have to check out the nurseries around, see if any of them have these... The main one I go to, just got a BUNCH of new plants, but NONE of what I was looking for. :/ That's what I accidentally did with my Diefs, let them outside, and I didn't realize it froze that night, so now I am trying to save and root them... I once potted a few things together, then when I went to repot all the roots were tangled together, and by the time I was done untangling them.....not a lot of roots were left, and I was trying to be as careful as I could be.

Matt, thank you. I think I'm in good hands too:) What do you mean blocking or hanging above the aloe? And I think I will do that, leave them dry for a few days. I've noticed some of the aloe likes being outside, and some don't. Which is weird. (But we just got 5-6 inches of snow, and its not melting:( or warming up, so putting them outside is a no-go, even putting in our breezeway is a bad idea)

I will definitely update you on how they turn out. :)

Thanks for sharing! Did they all come from the same pot and you divided them up?

I think I got this one a long time ago...couple years ago. I have 2 other big ones, the smaller ones were babies/pups from those. Honestly as far as I remember, they have all been in different pots...

Every time I water my pot of pups i wonder how yours are coming along? Mine have turned green again and lost that stressed brown/red color for the most part.

posting a picture for you

They look so much better! Congratulations!

Thank you!!

April

This is not to be negative, but I think you can do still better: last photo is showing plants in a mix that has hardly any perlite; plants would probably do better and look better if there was more mix in the container = potted not so deep/low inside of it. I am assuming that container has drainage holes.

1st photo shows mix with more perlite, but plants look quite buried in it. You could add more mix (and even more perlite), but do not just pile it up on the plants.

I am looking only at the photos (sometimes doesn't really shows exactly what is going on), and want to give suggestions to help. Hope that is how you read this :)

It has quite a bit of perlite in it, most of it just isn't on the top., I will add a little bit more to it tho.

And the roots on those in the last picture go quite deep and are long...actually the 2 biggest ones in that pot are connected by one big long root., most, if not all, of the little ones in it are their babies.

As for the first picture, (I also just looked at the pot again) its just the angle, the soil is maybe less than 1/2inch from the top of pot.

I took some pictures of the more mature Aloe chinensis* that i have. *(that's what I know these as, they are different from my barbadensis so I can't call them the same thing no matter what the nomenclature people say. If anyone has anything to say about this to illuminate the subject, I'm more than eager to hear /read/ what you have to say about it.)*

One is variegated that i got from woodnative a few years ago. Its had it rough but I like it and for being in a scorching hot area missing most of its potting media from the rain i think it looks pretty good. I'm not sure yet if that one pup on the right is parasitic or not so I'm waiting to see how that one goes before deciding to remove it.

All the babies in the other photos came from the smaller, all-green one. It was so over-crowded. I probably should have buried the neck/stem more but it won't die if I don't.

Flash:

No flash:

Variegated