No clue what they mean by "high pH" means, but whatever.
Have you cycled your tank? Because right now it seems to be in the cycling progress. Usually in an established cycled tank there should be no signs of ammonia, and nitrItes, nitrAtes at around 5 ~ 10ppm. That usually means it's cycled.
There is that 0.25ppm of ammonia, I would do a quick water change, 50% water change, and only water.
Be sure to follow the directions to a "T" especially with the time lines of adding drops, shaking between and reading results.....it has a high user error until you get used to using it...
Also, on the #2 nitrate reagent bottle-be sure and shake, bang on the table and shake some more-it tends to settle and can give skewed results..
Rinse the vials well under running tepid water and air dry-pouring the tested water down the drain followed by running the faucet for a few seconds.
You also need to run test on your source water both with and without any of the additives you normally use in the tank.
Start a log book and compare all your numbers-this can tell you several things....and give you a base line...
If additives cause any changes
CO2 contents of the source water after a 24h degas
If you have ammonia, nitrite, nitrate in the source water
pH of both source and tank-this will tell you if something in the tank itself or additives are causing pH changes
Levels of the tank itself-remembering that basing water changes on water prams alone is not a good idea since we also have DOC's (dissolved organic compounds) in the tank that can be harmful
The problem I see though is that your nitrAte levels are at 0ppm. Although ammonia and nitrItes should always be 0pm, nitrAtes should be around 5 ~ 10ppm.
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