Lots of work, little to show for it....

I have been diligently tending to my planted tank for years now. I still have not achieved the type of growth I believe is possible according to pictures I have seen and descriptions I have read. I have done much research and read many articles, many from this very site but I seem to be running out of ideas of my own. I would appreciate any criticism any of you could offer to help me get to a point where I am concerned with scaping and pruning rather than keeping stuff alive.

55 gallon tank with approximately 10 gallons displaced by substrate and biomass
85%-90% coverage microsword carpet
somewhat heavily planted with anacharis, red sword, cryptocorne, pond penny, water sprite, and hawthorne in the mix

4 deg KH Co2 drop check reads green/yellow by lights on and nearly completely yellow 1.5 hours later.
130 W PC bank on 10A to sunset ( about 9P) - 5000 Kelvin about 2 yrs old
130 W PC bank on 1P to 5P for midday boost - 6700 Kelvin about 2 yrs old
Dose daily - 1/3 tsp KNO3, .07 tsp (1/2 tsp a week) KH2PO4, 3 ml Seachem Iron, 5.5 ml TMG
50%-70% water change every Sunday w/out fail
I add 1/4 tsp KNO3 and 5ml TMG post partial - PO4 always tests 3-5 ppm pre-partial and I do not add it on day of water change
Tank water regularly tests at 160 ppm or 9 deg. GH, 70 ppm or 4 deg. KH, 10-20 ppm NO3, and 2-5 ppm PO4.

Link to my water company report - it is a PDF and may take a second to display
http://www.lwcky.com/water_quality/ccr07.pdf

Links to a couple pics of plants in my tank

Anacharis only green for top 2"-3"
http://www.securestat.com/Aquarium%20Pics/Anacharis.JPG

Hawthorne, ratty, no new growth since I have had it
http://www.securestat.com/Aquarium%20Pics/Hawthorn.JPG

Pond Penny seems to grow but new leaves remain small
http://www.securestat.com/Aquarium%20Pics/PondPenny.JPG

Overall tank pic, sure looks alot better from a distance
http://www.securestat.com/Aquarium%20Pics/Tank%20Overall.JPG

I'm not a great photographer but if any of you think better pics will help I will gladly try. Thanks to everyone...

 

Thanks Frolicsome...
My goal is certainly quality growth which is what I'm lacking. I recently within the last month cut my lighting back to what I stated in this post. I was running both banks for 12 hours or so and after reading some posts on here I decided I am over kill on wattage but I have not noticed an improvement so much as I have noticed that it seems to have slowed the process of death to plants. The microsword does not seem to be as vibrant green since cutting back on light, it has a more yellow tipping and many blades a day magicially rise to the surface. The most notable improvement I have seen is an almost complete disappearance of black algae from the tank. It seems that there is not much light penetration when only one bank of lights are on, but it could just be that I'm so used to the old light schedule. You say dose TMG on off days but I have been dosing macro and trace daily. I figure steady daily meals for the plants is better than every other day but I'm willing to take any suggestions at this point. Would you recommend I change my dosing routine? Thanks again for you thoughts....

PS - the tank really does look much better in that picture than in person.

 

All last week I added an additional 5 ml of TMG daily for a total of 10+ml. I thought as you did Flora, that I may be lacking micros and if nothing else I could possibly eliminate it as limiting factor and then move on to something else. I did not notice any improvement during the week of extra TMG and want to try something else, but I am not sure what. One observation I have is that there is absolutely no pearling w/out the second bank of lights on. I just don't get it. It makes sense to me that there is a maximum amount of growth that plants can achieve even if all known growth promoting parameters are unlimited. So at some point light and ferts. are waisted or are greater in abundance than can be utilized. What should I try next? Double Fe, less light, raise KH, try different test kits? I greatly appreciate all of your insights. Thanks...

 

Thank you Frolic... and Professor, I will experiment with moving drop check to areas of various flow and attempt to increase CO2 according to fish behavior. I use a skimmer so surface movement should be good. In the mean time I will order new lighting. I've been wanting to go to T8 for some time now based on the availability of lower Kelvin temps. in T8. Thank you for reading all of my boring jabber and offering me advice. I will be so happy the day I finally get this right. Thanks again....