Tanya,

Glad my attempts at trouble shooting helped. :-) I was really baffled by the
extremely short leaves, but I figured if I just rambled long enough about
what Phals need, some helpful idea might come out of it.

I am very surprised that you water on avg twice a week, and that by the time
you water again only the moss at the bottom of the pot is barely damp. I
guess your environment must be such that your plants dry out extremely
quickly. Have you considered getting a humidifier? It could be that your
home is a bit too dry for them.

If I were you I would be careful with a diagnosis of "underwatered" (while
it is possible to underwater them, few of us do), and be sure not to
overwater the Phals either (because that would be even worse). If you are
already watering twice a week, and you think that they dry out too much
between waterings, consider repotting them in plastic pots instead of clay
pots -- they should dry out more slowly in plastic pots.

You said that you think that they may not be getting enough light, but the
plant has grown a new spike in this place. I wonder whether if you had
decided to let it continue spiking it would have developped a keiki instead
of flowered. That's what happened with my first Phal, after growing in a
north window for a year.

I am not sure about the fertilizer, it might be too much Nitrogen after all,
30-10-10 seems like a rather extreme formula to me. But then again I don't
know much about the different fertilizers, so maybe I am the wrong person to
comment on this part of your post.

From your story it sounds like you rescued these poor Phals from a rather
dire situation, and that they are already doing better than they were
before. So maybe the short leaves are not as surprising, considering what
they had been through. And if you just keep trying to improve their
conditions, I am sure that they will be fine.

Best,
Joanna