Scotian

Have you considered Flourite? It's pricey, but gives good results and doesn't buffer the water. Eco-complete has been said to buffer the water although I don't have personal experience of this. I use flourite and have had good results. No problems growing anything. Swords and heavy root feeders like a root tab. With Calgary water, a higher Ph is the last thing you probably want.

The hardest part is just finding the balance. While I would keep the ferts constant (I would look into Tom Barr's method for low tech tanks), you want to keep your lighting and co2 balanced to allow the plants to grow as fast a possible. If you have lots of co2 and little light, the light will limit the growth assuming you have plentiful nutrients. It is not really a problem to have lots of co2 as it won't cause algae. However, if you have little co2 and too much light you will have algae galore and the co2 will be the limiting factor. If you have lots of light and lots of co2 but too little fertz, algae can grow as well as the fertz will be the limiting factor. Based on my experience and gathered knowledge, I would keep the co2 levels high and find a balance on the amount of light and nutrients. Of course, you can have a low light, no co2 setup and just dose as needed and adjust until you get a rhythm going. It can just be hard to get it perfect.

I was also looking into Aquaflora Nurseries. Apparently they are slowly expanding their selection and more will be available in the future. I am going to VanC in late May so I might order plants for my 75 and 90 gallon tanks I'm setting up and pick them up on the way back to save shipping. I'm curious as to how big these cultures actually are. I forget the guys name but if he is out of stock on something he'll add you to a list to be notified when more plants are ready. If there are some people interested maybe we could throw together a group order and I could just bring it back when I get mine since I'm going that way anyway. I'm new on this forum but I frequent the planted tank forums and just found this one. Even if there's no group order I wouldn't mind picking up orders for other people since I'm going that way. Either way I'll post a review and some pics after I get my order in a month or so.

Green leaf aquariums is supposed to have really high quality products. I haven't heard of anyone saying anything bad about the products. The owner's name is Orlando and if you email him he can answer almost any question you ask. He can also do custom stuff (manifold, multi-tank setups, etc.) and I dealt with him once and he was great!