I went to the pet store and purchased a 5 in 1 test kit and just in case, a small bottle of their pH down, (sulfuric acid, % unknown). First test, and sure enough, pH was off the chart. The chart only goes to 9.0. After adding a few drops of pH down at a time and retesting I got it close to 6.5 with 14 drops. This would explain a lot! One other situation I'll have to look into: Iron-None detected