regular aquarium gravel and some pvc pipe for breeding

are drift wood and bogwood the same thing?

Bogwood as its name suggests is wood that is found in bogs and has been preserved due to anaerobic conditions. Driftwood is the wood that you find on the sea shore.

If you have driftwood in your tank this could be the reason for the high pH, it could have absorbed salt and other things which are now being released. Some types of gravel can also have a high calcium content.

First thing check the pH of the water coming out of your tap, do a couple of tests, one straight out the tap and then test the same sample again severel hours later if it's less than 8.1 then its probably one of the other two.

but its not from the ocean its from a lake.

Have you got a picture of the wood?

Your water seems unusually high for just tap water. A trick I learnt is to leave a bucket of treated tap water with a ph down buffer (seachem discus buffer is good) and leave it for a couple days and use that for your waterchanges. Ph should lower to desired amount after 3 or so water changes. There are natural buffers like bogwood and peat moss but iv never had a problem with powder buffers. Some people dont like chemical buffers but iv never had any problems. Hasn't effected my discus and I buffer the waterchange water every time. Changing too much ph too soon can stress the fish tho so little bits at a time is recommended.