my tangerine popped 3 for 3, and they were not the best looking. cracked in 24h, popped outa ready rooters in 2-3 days ish. if its been 9 days ish sounds like something went wrong..
asking advice and not telling your whole store dosnt really work.. how did you crack them? what did you put them in after cracked? was the water PHed and at what? what water did you use? if tap did you let it sit a day? did you put anything in the water, if so why, and at what ppm? did you use a heating pad and dome to keep humidity high and temps up? how deep did you put them in your medium? and many more questions.. as you can see there is a lot that matters, witch makes giving advice hard.
heres what i did,
i start with RO water take 2 liters and add 1/8th tsp of both parana and taranchula and a 1/4 tsp of voodoo juice. let is sit for a couple hours and then ph to 5.9 (will go into hydro) soke a bounty paper towel in the water, let it drip so not drenched and put beans in it and put it in a ziplock bag. i leave some air in the bag, not a lot. and put it on a heating pad that is on low setting and is on a timer set to 15m on 15m off. put under a 120watt equivalent cfl, (2100 lumens, 30w bulb (my barneys VK poped in 12h, tangerine took 24h) i checked at 12 and 24h, when cracked i used tweezers and place them into new ready rooters. i take a little of the corner of the ready roots and put it down the whole if needed to get the at the height that i want, i only go about 1/8inch down. and then i place the bean in with the cracked end down and take i little more of the corner of the ready rooter and put it next to the bean to hold it where i want and to cover the whole, i dont pack ever, just tiny little pieces kinda sprinkled or gently placed. and put the rooters in a dome and put the dome on the same heating pad. i gave each rooter 1or 2 tsp of the water and put a little water in the bottom of the dome, the rooters sit up off the bottom out of the water. i check twice a day and try not not keep to wet or to dry. i do let fresh air in when i check on them. again the vk were fast, but they looked a whole lot better at the start. vk were up in 24-36h the tangerine took 2-3days. hope any of that helps.. by the way i do the same for soil but PH the water to 6.3.
if your tempted to see whats going on in your soil go really slow like an archeologist. if you have a tap root and break it theres no fixing that, but i have a feeling theres more wrong than things just being slow, or maybe not
best of luck..
by the way i have no affiliation with AN, just a customer