Never attempt to bring the pH down by adding an acid. If you have a decent KH, the pH drop will be temporary, and jump back to what it was, and with each addition, some of the KH will be consumed until it is all gone, and then the pH will crash. By the numbers reported, the pH was high, then not so high, and then high again. This could be by the inability to discern the true pH from the drop type test which I also suffer from, Just too much room for error on the readings. It could also be from a lack of KH, which when low or zero allows for the pH to change radically and fast. These pH swings, if that is what is going on, will inhibit the ability of the good bacteria to do their job, multiply and take care of the ammonia and nitrite. Once the KH is over 100ppm, if accomplished with baking soda, the pH should be very consistent at about 8.3. If it goes up near 9, after we have good KH, then we can bring down the pH with the addition of calcium chloride, which is used as swimming pool hardness increaser, but we don't need to think about that yet. Get the KH reading, and let us know what you have and we can go from there.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard