freash water fish

Question
my house usulally gets -15 in the winter because its cold in BC but we want to save energy(did you know half the wourld is light now?)so do you think guppies could live in that cold water? arent white clouds supposed to be tropical fish? thanks for answering. i need to know as much as i can before i get my tank. can i use plastick plants?
do i have to have graval cause woun't it be easyer to clean without graval? can i have a under graval   filter if i don't have any graval? i have too many worms in my garden because its not a garden. i dont have much of a green thumb so i dont have any plants to spray pesticieds on.sorry for spelling mistaks my keyboard is sticky.

Answer
Dear Caren, (never mind the spelling mistakes... ;-)
It might be best if you did just get a heater. You wouldn't have to set it very high. To perhaps about 75F so the heater isn't working so hard.

Wow,if it's really -15C in winter!!! That's only 5 Degrees fahrenheit! Perhaps you meant 15Celsius(without the minus) which equals to 59F which is still very cold. But correct me if I'm wrong.
* White cloud mountain minnows could probably survive it that cold, but I am not sure if they would thrive. Again, a heater would come in handy as white clouds really prefer at least 65-72F. And guppies- from 65-80F. They really prefer water on the warmer scale even though they tolerate cooler water for a short period.
So a heater would be your best bet as an insurance that your aquarium won't be so cold for too long.

~Yes, plastic plants are fine and work out excellent. But live plants are so nice to have and much more naturalistic. You'll have to have florescent lighting for live plants and is a better option anyway because Florescent lights use less energy and give off less heat than ordinary incandescent. Some live plants you might want to try are Anacharis, Hornwort, Java fern, Java moss, Water sprite, red lotus, and Aponogeton. Just a thought if you were interested in plants. But plastic works great too!

Most live plants will need a good layer of gravel. A gravel bed provides a place for special beneficial bacteria to colonize and live and they are the ones as you know that are responsible for keeping your water healthy (along with normal maintenance of water changes) and sometimes without gravel there isn't enough places for them to colonize unless a very good filter with lots of "biological" material in running on the tank as a place for the bacteria to grow. But besides that, it's easy to maintain about 1 inch or less of gravel. And having gravel makes the aquarium much more attractive and the fish less shy. Dark gravels and natural shades are best.
~It's easy to clean an aquarium with gravel. All you need is a aquarium siphon hose found at your local petstore. It's a device made to siphon water and a tube where you can sink it into the gravel all around to siphon up the debri at the same time. Very easy!
Oh and a undergravel filter really won't work properly without gravel. I would just put a Hang on the back  (HOB) power filter as these are very good at filtering your water and being easy to maintain at that. Undergravel filters aren't the best either. They tend to collect mulm or dirt under the plate and this can make your water very polluted and the fish sick as well. So it's best to leave it out of your setup.

Just remember the first and most important thing you should think about for sucess with your first aquarium is cycling it. This is essential and you cannot get around it. Without carefully cycling your aquarium first everything will go downhill truth be told.

Well, it sounds like the earthworms appreciate your yard non-the-less maybe they are trying to prepare the soil for a dazzling garden soon!!! ;-) just kidding... ;-)

I really hope this helps and Best wishes as always!
Karen~