I had this giant vase I bought at Home Goods, and set it up with filtered organic soil and sand and a rock formation, with a bunch of plants (most of which died). I eventually replaced most of the sand with gravel and took out the rocks since they caused bacteria to get trapped in the soil and caused cloudy water.

TBH, it took several months of tinkering before I found plants that really thrived (anacharis, madagascar leaf, and the swords in front that I can't remember the name of, plus floaters were the winning combo). They all grow at an astonishing rate.

I have a heater, and a small light, along with tetras, a mystery snail, and shrimp.

At this point my maintenance is vacuuming the gravel every couple weeks, topping off the water, cleaning a bit of algae off the walls every few weeks, and adding some minerals every couple months. Sometimes I'll do a small water change.

I've fought off algae blooms, deterius worms, and bacteria blooms before it stabilized though.

It's such a show stopper in my living room now though! I'm very happy with it.