I've had live plants (Anubias) in clay pots. At first it was great, the pots and plants were smaller. They grew into large shrubs and I had to put them into larger pots. Then it became a PITA to me, trying to move them around the bottom to clean well. I also had Moss Balls rolling around the bottom, they were really cool but I needed to have the light on for longer periods of time and so developed more algae in the tank. Pulled everything out and added a nice sized driftwood centerpiece with about 1 lb. of gravel lightly scattered on the bottom, on each side of the driftwood.