The compaction should be fine, you don't want it packed down hard any way. Just when you plant it, you want to kind of press the soil down around the plant a little. Then water it (this is the only time I water from the top for seedlings in containers), which generally results in the soil settling some. Add a little more soil and LIGHTLY press it down.
But what you said about watering didn't make any sense to me:
as far as watering goes i water when the first 1.5 inches of the soil seems dry, which recently has been no more than 2 times a day but i don't pour too much water into the pots in the morning because there is standing water a
Watering two times a day sounds like probably too much. It is possible they would need that if they are outdoors in containers with well draining soil, in full sun and it is hot and dry. But I think last time you mentioned temps, it was warm, but not hot. But it is completely contradictory to say that the soil is dry and there is standing water. Are you telling us you are watering from the bottom AND the top? DON'T do that! If you are bottom watering, you have to trust that the soil is wicking the water up, even if you can't feel it on the surface. The surface is not what you care about anyway. You care about the root zone. If there is still water in the tray the next morning, don't add more and don't water from the top. If you read applestar's posts, she doesn't even let the water stay in the tray. She puts water in the tray, lets the soil and plant suck it up for some amount of time, and then sucks any extra back out of the tray with a turkey baster. Let the soil and the plant do what they do and absorb it. I don't bother with sucking the excess water back out, but it is because I am quite careful with adding water, just like a quarter inch in the bottom of the tray, just enough so it touches the soil. And if there is any left the next day, I don't add more.
The one thing I would say about that is if you added your quarter of an inch of water in the tray, and two days later it is still sitting there, something is wrong. Either your soil is way too moisture holding, the drainage holes are clogged so the soil can't contact it, or the plant died or hardly has any root system or something, so that it can't take up water.
Sometimes it is really hard to help people remotely... neither of us knows what you don't know

. But keep asking questions and letting us know what is going on and we will get this sorted out!