for now I airated the soil by poking as many holes as I could, without breaking roots. hopefully that will work for the moment.

I will transplant tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.

I'm reluctant to go to a bigger pot just yet. I know I will have to do that eventually, but it means rearranging my whole setup to accomodate the space needed by the bigger pots. I want to wait until my other plants need transplanting too. (they are still wee seedlings.) I know there is still lots of space for root growth in this pot - any reason it would be bad to just transplant the rootball back into the same pot, with a better soil mix?