I thought I had you figured out!
Some conditioners need to be increased when your water supply has chloramines not chlorine.
A quick(so I say) check of your water supplier on the net should tell you how they treat your water.
I say I thought because the conditioner I am aware of is API not aqueon?
The API says I believe 5X more for chloramines.
Many use seachem prime as it is the most affordable if you do the math and dose correctly.
Read your directions and see if they have different doses for either?
If they do go right to the higher dose!
I am guessing at this point but assume you are using basic goldfish like feeders(comets)?
Even they should not be dropping like flies!
Besides the strips being less accurate they don't test for ammonia which would be the very first nutrient to arrive in a cycling fish tank!
You g fish have not added ammonia to your 40g tank yet in any measure but what makes chloramine different from chlorine is it is chlorine bonded to ammonia ,so it would be nice to know?
Fish in cycles are fine if you do daily testing and waterchanges when needed!
You absolutely need an ammonia test to do this.
There was no other way before.
The youngins are all high tech!(more power to them)
But I hope they know what to do when the power goes out!!!!