[GSAS-Member] Am I doing the right thing with Vals?

[Laurel Larsen <laurelthequeen@gmail.com>]

I got some Vallisneria at the auction, and so far my mbuna either  
haven't figured out that it makes a tasty snack, or they're not eating  
it fast enough for me to notice.  I'll start with telling you that I'm  
a complete plant noob.

I have an inert substrate(3m Colorquartz) that I have them planted in,  
and I'm dosing the tank with excel every day or every other day if I  
don't remember.  I also have been dosing it with Flourish twice a  
week.  I noticed a couple days ago that some of the leaves appear to  
be turning slightly transparent.  They might have been this way  
beforehand, and I didn't notice it, regardless, should I be doing  
something to combat this?  Should I be adding anything else to the  
water? It's buffered pretty heavily(with a premixed buffer as well as  
a bunch of aragonite substrate in my filter) and has Malawi GH  
boosters as well which I believe is calcium and some other stuff.

The tank's levels(of stuff I have test kits for) are -
pH - 8.0
Amm. - 0
NitrIte - 0
NitrAte - >5, <20
KH - 15º
GH - 15º
Phosphates I haven't tested in a while, but they're fairly low

Thanks for the input, after having such bad luck with Anubias, I wan  
to make sure I'm doing this correctly, but I'm not willing to switch  
out for an enriched substrate, the colorquartz is too perfect for my  
mbuna.

Here's a shot of the tank on thursday
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g254/Laurelthequeen/Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=DSCF5423.jpg
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