Complete n00b needs advice on the germination process.

So I'm completely new to the entire realm of growing and I'm already having trouble at step one. seems my luck. anyway, it was bagweed and i've placed about five seeds inside of about 6 moist paper towels in my closet. i have a florescent light bulb in there (not using it for growing, i'm just describing the environment) about 4 feet away from them that i generally leave on at most times. it's been about 3 1/2 days since i set this up and since then my seeds have only browned. no sprouts or anything, but they've changed from white to brown and their color is deepening by the day.

I assume i messed something up as i doubt that's supposed to happen and i'm new to this. so any ideas? are the seeds just bad, should i make sure to leave the light off/on, is there a better set up instead of paper towels...anything.

just doing some of my own morning research i saw someone say to not use tap water on seedlings because they don't take well to chlorine. i used water out of my faucet when i moistened the towels so i'm thinking that's what the problem was but if i'm also doing anything else wrong...please tell me. anything you can add will probably be new or helpful to me. thanks. :)

Get A zip lock bag and a paper towel get the towel moist not wet stick your seeds in the paper towel and fold it in half then put them in the bag fill the bag up with air as full as you can get it that should cause it to get very humid. Then put it in a dark place like a shoe box or a blunt box and put it under your bed somewhere that no one will mess with it 24 to 48 hours later all of your seeds should be germinated unless you have bad seeds. try it, it works for me every time. good luck growing

alright, awesome...i'll go get some ziplock bags and try that. i figured i'd run into plenty of problems my first few times so i've been spacing out my seed usage to allow time for more insight like that so all should be good. thank you, much.

before i get things going again though with that method; is what i said about the chlorine in the tap water true? if so: what water should i use when i moisten it and later when i water it.

tap water can be dangerous depending on your tap water... i managed
to kill off my entire first group of ferns using tap water...

my second group was nearly lost due to my nasty water... ive switched
to bottles of poland spring... i know thats not necessarily the best way
to go, but my plants are ok now...

alright, yeah, bottled water was what i was thinking i'd have to use but just needed some verification. i'll go ahead and try it out that way and see how things go, but if anyone else has any pointers or anything...feel free. thanks.

the way i do it is i squeeze the seeds a little to see if they break if they do there no good. i put them in paper towels in a plastic bag. they pop in 24hrs at the most some a little after

Use distilled water, its like 50 cents a gallon at walmart. tap water can have all sorts of hard minerals and shit, as can spring water. i just did this yesterday and had 4 out of 4 seeds germ w/i 24 hrs. took like 3 paper towels, wet with distilled water till they were soaked but not dripping. folded the seeds like an inch apart between the folded towels, but on top of a stereo where it was mildly warm. just in a bedroom and not any special light. this also worked once before, 5/6 seeds germed. BUT...you said your seeds are green? sounds like immature seeds, they should be dark grey or brown from what i've read. good luck!

Tap water is not good at all i am thinking that is what killed off my first group but if you do use it boil it that will get out all of the chlorine even with. I even boil my bottle water just in case. Do not use any nutrients for 2 to 3 weeks I have also made that mistake before you have to learn from your mistakes and fix it. good luck

no, my seeds were like a light greyish white. but thanks for all the input about the distilled water and such...i already had things set up with bottled water before i read that but i'll try distilled next time if something goes wrong with these. and yeah, i enjoy learning from my pot mistakes...keeps me well occupied. thanks for the help everyone. :-)