I started with a 10 gallon tank and initially got gravel and all fake decor. I quickly realized I wanted plants though, and I wanted to use a good substrate (fluval or dirted) to give myself better odds of my plants thriving. Since my tank was already done though pulling out all the gravel would be a big task, so I actually planted my plants in terracotta pots (they cost less than a $1 at Home Depot). I find it hard to use the big tweezers for planting, this lets me do all the planting outside the tank and easily bury the roots. I can also easily turn the pots in the tank and move it around for trimming. And if I’m ever unsuccessful with a plant I can pull all the dead debris out. Also this way if I upgrade my tank I can easily move all my plants over. This might be obvious, but I didn’t know until I tried, if you do use dirt you have to add a layer of gravel (or something heavy) on top or the dirt will just float out. The terracotta pots don’t look natural, but I was focused more on getting some plants growing and seeing what would do well in my tank and what wouldn’t before spending the money and time on setting up driftwood. I love these though for how easy it makes adding plants to my tank, and how easy it makes gravel vacuuming with plants (I can just move them).
