My water is out of whack.... any ideas?

I am really struggling to keep my water readings in balance. Specs are: Ph 8.3 Am, NH2 NH3 all zero. Kh 7-9 (when I kalk this will shoot up in the mid teens, but right now I am not kalkwasser-ing so that is pretty stable) my salinity is 1.025, temp 76-77. I do not know what my magnesium is. I have ordered a test kit but it has not arrived yet.

The problem is my Calcium. I cannot get it above 300, usually it is 200 or less. So things look puny and not growing well, except for HA that has been doing great. I began dosing Algae Fix and I have backed off on feeding, baster blasting and scrubbing removable rocks, and I have a phos bag in the sump. So the HA is nearly gone now.

I have a filter and skimmer. Since I am not feeding much (2-3 times per week) I do not get much skimmate.

I have Aquavitro Calcification from World of Fish that I am dosing daily at the prescribed rate of one tsp which I dose at night. But it seems like water changes are the only thing keeping my proverbial head above the water with my ratio's. And I usually stay in the low 200's. I spoke to Boomer from Reef Central. He was at our last Duluth meeting. I am going to see if he will give a seminar on water. I was running my salinity low, 1.023 but boosting this has not made any difference.

I have lightly dosed magnesium every 4th day per advice but until I get a test I try to only do half doses of the Mg. I know so many people that do not do water changes nor dose and their tanks look amazing.

This is a 29g biocube with 4 compacts, two 10k and two actinics. I have two fresh bulbs and two that are 6 months old and scheduled for replacement as they are looking puny.

I have 20 pounds of LR 2 inches of aragonite, a filter, skimmer, and two charcoal charges. The phos bag is about a month old. I may change that soon, it is supposed to last 6 months but I think it might be full because of previous nutrient problem. I think I have the nutrients under control, and hopefully the phos.

[I have read you should always make your readings the same time of day. I usually make my readings first thing in the morning before the lights come on. Last night I did not do that but made readings in the evening with lights still on. So last night I dosed 3 tsp of kalk (because my alk was low, one tsp of Ca, (because it was way low, the max daily dose is 1 tsp). This a.m. readings are 10 alk and Ca 300. Not what I want but not horrible]

Anyway, Got any ideas folks? Usually when I have asked an old timer these questions, they say, VERBATIM, "go to Reef Central and read Randy's article water chemistry 101" I have read these articles over and over, and I understand them. Just not in practice. Seems like in my application of readings vs. dosing that I hose things up and to get back I must do water changes and keepa my mitts off. I speak to so many successful reefers who never test, dose when they remember, occasional water changes, yadda yadda.

If your magnesium is to low you wil not get your Calcium up. You can dose it all day and it will not go up. Mag needs to be 1250 befor you can dose Cal ,DKH. When that test kit comes in lets see what you have. and get your salinity 1.026.

Yeah ditto to what Dan said. Think of Mag as a bucket, the lower the mag the smaller the bucket. You can only fit so much CA in the bucket, increase mag and you can get your Ca up. Auquavitro makes a supplememnt with Mag in it. just try using it and see what happens, after you get your test kit. Petco in duluth has it i believe or world of fish.

Calibrate your refractomoter to 1.026 Using Milwaukee cal fluid from BRS. I suggest anyone with water issues to check this first, my refractomoter was like 100 bucks and it gets out of wack once a month I would say.

"What works for me", Like Dan posted Mag needs to be a min of 3x your targeted # of Cal to keep CAL stable. This tool has worked great for me to keep my waters stable http://www.roflcode.com/reefkeeping/ChemPlot/ChemPlot.html
and I use this tool to get to my targeted Balance.
http://jdieck1.home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html
I do 10 gal water changes weekly and make sure my make up water readings are the same as the readings in my tank, I drip my ALK suppliment instead of just adding it dosing ALK suppliments should always be dripped to keep PH stabile,I drip my CAL and MAG to this way I always have a slow and steady and even supply of traces and watch my consumption and bump up my drip rates as my stock grows there consumption will increase.
my targeted readings I keep:
Sal: 1.026
Alk: 9.5
CAL: 430
Mag: 1294
POT: 380
PH:8.3 Lights on. and my PH will very if my home is closed up to much this is why I always keep a window open so I get fresh air in the winter I duct fresh air to my tank.
and to keep HA under control I keep a Low bioload (fish count) on my tank which since Vishnu has moved and my Bioload is tripled I have to work harder to keep my nutrients in check.

I know so many people that do not do water changes nor dose and their tanks look amazing.

I hear this about I do nothing to my tank alot from some reefers,No water changes for over a year and I don't dose and everything looks great,,,,,,,,,,,,,OK give me a break, someones not given someone all there husbandry methods.okay a little example:will use flowers as our example if you plant flowers in a pot that had flowers in the same soil in the same pot last year and all you do is water these flowers.
and you plant the same kind of flowers in a new pot of soil and fertilize and water regularly do you thing these flowers will grow at the same Rate???? I think not! works the same with our reef tanks and any live organism, live coral consume trace elements they don't reproduce it so how can you do no water changes or not dose and keep everything stable???????? sorry makes no sense to me?.
our reef tanks are in glass boxes not fueled by mother earth like our oceans are so we need to replace what's being consumed.

Just some food for thought and sorry I was board...LOL.

First off what test kit are you using? Have you checked them agaist someone elses test kit? 29 gals isn't very big, could you just do a couple 10 gal water changes in a week or 2 and your parms would be back in order. What brand salt are you using? WC scheudle? How much sps, lps? If you don't have a lot of lps/sps I find it hard that your parms are this low. How are you mixing/dosing kalk? I know when I was dosing kalk I wasn't doing it right. I was mixing the vat daylie and then dripping, I shouldn't have been mixing daylie. The links that icereefer has given are good links. I also thought I read something about salinity having something to do with how high you can get ca,alk, mag.

Whoa lots of questions... last first, test kit Siefert for Ca, API for ph, am, Nh3, Nh4, Tetra for Kh. I decided not to pop the 40 bucks for the Mg test, I think the one I ordered from Fosters is Red Sea? I don't recall. Yes the water changes will doing 50% water changes would certainly jar things back into range. I have no sps, but a bunch of zoas, mushrooms, a couple small leathers. two long tenticle anems, my RBA died a month ago. :/ a rock anem, one of Cami's candy cane thingy's. A ricordea, some fire weed, but the algae fix is "fixing" that it may not survive. I do have a lot of coralline. I suppose that could be sucking out the Ca. I have the Aquavitro Mg which also suppliments strontium and boron. I dose this every 4th day until my test kit comes in I don't want to get too crazy.
I can certainly bump up my salinity, I suppose it is possible my refractometer is off, I read somewhere to calibrate with RO/DI water.
I buy my water from Morgan. He is pretty anal about the water. It is Reef Crystal to 1.025 which seems to match my refract. so I think I am in the ball park. I took my water over to him for a "second opinion" he was coming up with my same readings. So I think my tests are okay.
I am sure dosing controllers and automated testing would simplify, I cannot justify that kind of cash for the biocube right now. I would hope that I can stabilize with manual cautious dosing.
Water changes are only about 3 gal per week. I have done 50% for weeks but not seen benefits.
I will check out the website above and be patient with the slow dosing of Ca. Likely just ease it on up and test frequently to ease on to the 400 mark.
I like the bucket analogy with the mg, salt level is the same idea. If you don't have the foundation high enough, you cannot get the Ca in range.
Thank you for the advice.

The only things you have in your tank that would use ca,alk, mg would be candy canes and corilline, but shouldn't need to dose to keep levels where they should be with only wc's. Are you sure you're not throughing your parms out of whack with your dosing? I had a hard time with manual dosing with a drip keeping parms stable, alk always dripped to fst and would drop instead of going up because of it. Don't think you need to dose with what you have and atamating would just be a gadget that isn't really needed. I'm not an expert but I think just doing wc's and stop dosing would get you back where things need to be unless you have a bad batch of salt.

Latest update. Patience Grasshopper. My Magnesium was low. Below 900. Which is why I could never get my Calcium correct. Without a test kit I have never known. After 4 days of cautious dosing, and a couple water changes, Mg is approx 1100, Ca is 370, will cut dosing in half and ease up to 1200, and 400. Everything seems to like the water quality. The zoa's are opening, leathers, even mushrooms have better color. Now to maintain.