The water conditioners won't (correct me if I'm wrong, someone) alter the pH, which does seem pretty high, although I wouldn't have thought it was too high to sustain fish.
More of a worry is a nitrite level of 0.5, although the strips may be showing an inaccurate reading. Doing a fish-in cycle, you need to keep nitrite (and ammonia) below 0.25ppm, which if you've genuinely got 0.5ppm nitrite in your tap water, you just can't keep the levels down. (Apparently, that level of nitrite is fine for humans, the US EPA state a maximum level of 1ppm for drinking water, according to www.ewg.org)
Try Ebay for a liquid test kit, certainly you can get the API one, which most people on here recommend, for about £20 on Ebay in the UK, which equates to about $30. (I personally use a different kit, the Hagen, which was what my LFS stocked when I bought my tank) Once you've got that you'll get a better indication of nitrite level.
However, I still reckon your initial problems with the fish dying within 12 hours in tap water was down to it still being chlorinated, which Aquasafe will sort out for you.
(BTW, I'm no expert, if anyone more experienced than me needs to contradict anything I've said, please feel free to do so.)
More of a worry is a nitrite level of 0.5, although the strips may be showing an inaccurate reading. Doing a fish-in cycle, you need to keep nitrite (and ammonia) below 0.25ppm, which if you've genuinely got 0.5ppm nitrite in your tap water, you just can't keep the levels down. (Apparently, that level of nitrite is fine for humans, the US EPA state a maximum level of 1ppm for drinking water, according to www.ewg.org)
Try Ebay for a liquid test kit, certainly you can get the API one, which most people on here recommend, for about £20 on Ebay in the UK, which equates to about $30. (I personally use a different kit, the Hagen, which was what my LFS stocked when I bought my tank) Once you've got that you'll get a better indication of nitrite level.
However, I still reckon your initial problems with the fish dying within 12 hours in tap water was down to it still being chlorinated, which Aquasafe will sort out for you.
(BTW, I'm no expert, if anyone more experienced than me needs to contradict anything I've said, please feel free to do so.)
