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Re: Advice
A stickleback may be hard to find, let alone keep alive. One of the secrets to keeping a setup of a mini ecosystem is that all the organisms need to be small, otherwise the system can't process their wastes and they die from poisoning themselves. A plant and bacteria will help to remove wastes, but you have to have the system be fairly large and set up for months before it can run without any help from you.
That's probably why you see guppies suggested. They're small, and don't need to have heated water like other tropical fish. As long as the water temperature is above 65o, they're happy. But guppies can sometimes be hard to keep. One thing I've found is that you have to look around to find healthy ones to begin with (don't buy any fish at WalMart!), and it helps to add a little salt to their water - about 1/2 teaspoon per gallon. Don't use table salt, because it's got iodine, but use kosher, canning, pickling, or rock salt instead.
If you can use a heater in the tank, I'd put in a female betta, but these need to have water that's 70o or more. And try to make the ecosystem as big as you can. If you're limited on space, make as much of it as you can be water for the fish.
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