i've tried pretty much every germing tech out there and now I just use a small yogurt container (or anything not clear that holds water) or a mug and i put like 5mls (essentially just a small splash) of H2O2 (
hydrogen Peroxide) then fill it about 1/2 way full of tap water (I have 7-12ppm tap water, so if your have hard water use filtered or bottled water for better success, altho it's probly a minimal dif) and I just throw however many seeds i'm popping (usually 30ish at a time, but you could do 1 or 100) into the container, label it (cause i'm usually doing a few dif seeds at once), then put it in a warm and darkish place (for me that's on a high shelf above my flowering area and i just move a box or something in front to keep it a lil darker) and within 12-24 hrs they start popping. I only plant my seed essentially right under the surface of the soil (like literally just a mm or less of soil on top, & because i use a nute free mix i do wet everything down with lucas's recipe for soaking rockwell for cloning (i agree that rockwell is no good for seeds) which is like 1ml micro/1ml gro/1ml bloom or around that, but that's optional.
The paper towel method works and is proven but sometimes people keep them too wet or let them dryout by accident, both resulting in death. in a cup of water (no lid) they continue to get O2 by floating and also the H2O2 in the water helps. i've forgotten abut seeds in cups of water for 4 days and the seeds may sink and have 1-2" tails and no shells, but they're still alive and plantable. so it's pretty foolproof in my exp.
I like to start my seeds in the same mix i grow in, same with cloning. I used to use peat pellets, those spongy looking rooters (i forget the name), rockwell, etc etc, but i found it best to just start everything in your main mix, there's less transition time, and it's WAY cheaper than buying any seed/clone starting cubes/pellets. one thing i really hate about rockwell is that it does not decompose, ever.
if you are using a 3-4" starting pot, and an unammended mix (coco, SSMix#4,
Promix HP) your plants will usually take about 1/2 strength nutes one their 1st real dryout/watering.. by the second dryout, they should be able to take 3/4-full strength nutes.. alot of this depends on your lighting/temps etc.. I use a T5 setup and my temps are about 70-75 and my lights are on 24/0.
Be careful about feeding, but i've had and seen more problems with underfeeding (in nute free mixes).. the plants go yellow and the leaves kinda curl down, and it looks like maybe your overfeeding so then people flush and make the probem even worse.. so be careful, but yer seedling will definately take some nutes on their 1st real dry out.. the seed will provide food for the plant for about 4-7 days depending on the seed size.
This^ is just my humble opinion and information from popping 1000s of seeds with a success rate of at least 99%, but it's usually 100%.
Good luck :)
