Another reason why I chose aragonite is for its buffering because of this...... had a long talk with my LFS about this last week!
It seemed odd to me that a great city like Vancouver that was so modern and stunning would have an aquarium hobby that was so behind. Things have come a long way here since then but still nothing like I expected, and there were many hobbyists repeatedly getting out of this great hobby.
It remained a mystery until last year when we discovered the relationship between our super soft water and it's negative effects on freshwater fish here. It hit me like a ton of bricks to be honest. It explained so many issues that had haunted me for years, unexplained deaths, cloudy water, poor recovery from meds, and others.
We took a huge step in trying to get this message across to our clients but also on this forum. We openly admitted that this issue had affected us negatively over the years and we were proud to be able to remedy it not only for us but our clients.
We were always aware that the pH was unstable and that the hardness was 0 yet because this is such a unique set of circumstances in BC water supply, we simply corrected the pH with coral, dolomite etc and continued on. I can remember when we used to sell 1 lb bags of dolomite to correct this problem. Of course, this did nothing for hardness but improved the problem of the pH crashing to 5.
It took us nearly 15 years to learn the negative impact the low hardness had on our fish and on our client's fish. When we told hobbyists with more experience then myself they were also shocked and noticed immediate improvement in their fish.
This forum is a great additional way to get the message out but like a new hobbyist who fails, they are more likely to toss the aquarium then to continue killing fish and wasting money of course. They end up feeling this hobby is simply too difficult for them, or fish keeping is just not for them, they then tell their friends the same and so on.
Once again there has been a thread on this issue started from a hobbyist that is confused about it and every reply stated buffers are unnecessary. I beg to differ. If this problem is not properly addressed, this hobby will continue to be stagnant in this province. There needs to be more consistent advice dealing with this issue and it needs to come from those who already agree with this. It is unfortunately not as affective coming from me as a few have commented in the past that I am just trying to peddle unnecessary product.
Of course if you take a poll on MFK which was mentioner earlier or other forums that have members that are not in BC, they will likely say it is unnecessary because they too have never had to deal with water parameters like ours. If it took me 15 years I can see how they would not find it very important. Even a Seachem representative was surprised to hear of our water parameters here. Buffers were generally created for hobbyists who wanted to match their parameters to specific levels, not to keep their fish alive.
The thread in question started recently was from a hobbyist with both a guppy aquarium and a goldfish aquarium, two examples of some of the hardest water fish in our hobby. In the wild no, but we are not dealing with wild, we are dealing with pond raised fish with extremely hard water that have been so going back many many years.
Osmoregulation is key to a fish's survival, without the proper minerals in our water this cannot be attained in the majority of fish we import. Some say they adjust their water by the actions of their fish. This forum deals with hobbyists of all different levels, many are beginners and many are more experienced but so was I. Please keep in mind that your comments are being read here by many other hobbyists and if you are truly an avid hobbyist, you should be keen on helping others to advance as well and allow this hobby to flourish as it should in this great province. I ask those who have had positive experiences with raising their hardness to comment to help others in making their aquarium keeping easier and long lived.
Thank you.
. But you can call me Luke if you want! 
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