Complete novice - Advice please

[Leigh]

After having bought the standard 10 gallon tank kit from a local store, we bought 5 goldfish and put them in. Yes, you guessed it 3 weeks later all the fish were dead. No, I didn't cycle the tank, because I didn't know you had to and the shop nor the accompanying booklets mentioned this. Furthermore, our water comes from well with an approximate [acronym:e6ccfad68e="power head or Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions, depending on context"]ph[/acronym:e6ccfad68e] value of 8.0-8.5.

So having read a lot more, I now realise that cycling a tank is a major part of the preparation. This is currently what I am doing. I was going to go the BioSpira route after reading about its success rate in this very forum but am keen to try the fishless cycling method purely for the experience.

My questions are: What fish could I put into water with ~pH8.0, secondly how many would you recommend?

Any advice would be welcome.