[Zapins]

You'll need to dose other nutrients in time, but the two you listed should take care of the three major ones.

Without seeing photos of your val and the damage I'd have to say it seems like the excel damaged them. In a few days/weeks they should recover and start growing again.

 

[Zapins]

The powered ferts.

 

[Zapins]

Flourish is mainly water. It is a decent fertilizer but it extremely dilute, which means you have to dose large amounts which gets expensive.

I'm on my cellphone on a plane at the moment or I'd check the ingredients of the aquavitro. Most people use CSM+B for the micro ferts.

 

[Zapins]

Ah, then no it provides no micro nutrients at all. In fact, none of those are actually vital to dose and as far as I've been able to tell the jury is still out on whether dosing them helps plants in any noticeable way, or if plants can even take up those vitamins from the water column at all.

You'll want something like CSM+B for micros, or one of the other micro nutrient products out there.

In my opinion it is another product designed to fleece more cash out of people.

 

[Zapins]

General hardness is primarily made up of calcium and magnesium - both essential plant nutrients. But if your water is hard to begin with (about about 6 GH) then you almost certainly won't need to dose either of them.

Ordering fertilizers can also be done online. Ebay is a decent source as well as this site: http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/index.asp?Option1=cats&Edit=2&EditU=1&Regit=2

I order my ferts from the aquariumfertilizer site, they are quite affordable.