Etiolated does not mean the same thing as elongated, teen. SFS, This Ech is a bit of a stretcher in lower-light circumstances - it's often used as the base / ground cover plants for taller plants. It does look fine to me, and if you see lower leaves drying up, as was said, it's a natural thing - the lower ones die as it adds leaves from the center of its rosette.

Thank you, Planto. Three years, you say? Well, I'll see if I can get some leaf cuttings to root before then. My guess is, that it's about one to two years old now. It might not be very noticeable from the picture, but it's got a small dimple in the centre of the plant. This is where rain water collects. I have now tried to correct this, by tilting it a bit, by putting some small stones under one side of the rosette. After the next rain storm, I'll have a look, and see if it was enough. The medium I've recently begun growing my succulents in, is cat litter, of a kind, that is actually a burnt diatomaceous clay. It's cheap, and fantastic... and a lot better than any commercial cactus soil, I've ever used. As long as water gets into the pot, it will soon be distributed, so that it also ends up by the roots, no matter where I water, and without ever getting too wet. I hope this will keep stem rot from developing in any of my plants :-D Thank you for taking the time to look it up! VG

Bonnie just to let you know that it is usually better to start a new thread especially if the older one has many posts and probably plenty of answers to original poster - and may not be read as often. There is a reason why plants are sold on clearance, and for such low price: most often it is a poor condition of the plant. Stores don't really know (or may have no time) how to care about different plants and succulents suffer usually more since they do not like to sit in wet soil. All plants in the stores get watered at the same time. Buying so many plants in poor condition makes it so much harder to save them - in very short time, you already lost 2. On top of that, the moon cacti are actually 2 plants: one on the bottom is a rootstock (more vigorous plant) and one on top - the colored one - is grafted on it. Colored plant can't survive on it's own since it lacks chlorophyl. It will grow grafted, but quite often doesn't grow more than few years (there are exceptions, but not that many). The soil they are in is likely not so much week, but water-retaining. It is probably peat that either stays too wet or too dry - very difficult to keep right moisture. Succulents need good drainage. You need to read about better mix to use for them. This thread has posts that mention better mix (even a photo of it), and you can search the forum for many, many more. Getting proper mix and containers ready ahead of time would help, so all the plants could be repotted as soon as possible. I am not trying to 'beat you up', just stating few facts. It is difficult to resist a bargain, but dealing with so many plants in poor condition isn't easy.

You can either do a leaf or the top bit of stem (maybe three inches) let it callus over a few days, lay it on some dry medium and roots will grow. Then,it can be planted up, wait a few days and go ahead and treat it normally. A leaf will grow a small plantlet and so it's the longer way to go. The bottom of the stem (the super stretched one,I'd get rid of the middle bit) so like the bottom inch or two that's rooted will likely start off shoots. BUT they all have to be put into much better soil/media. Everyone here has different mixes but a good rule of thumb and the easiest fix is to add perlite to the cactus soil you have at a 50/50 ratio. I personally like decomposed granite and pumice but really it's just a matter of breaking up the soil so water drains quickly and air can circulate around the roots. Which, incidentally will not work without drainage in the pot so make sure there are holes. If you Google "succulent propagation" you'll get some great how tos with pictures and step by steps.