From what I've read, high-tech planted tanks where one might care about TDS and CO2 end up being more work than a complete reef tank! In this comparison, I choose the reef.
I have 5 freshwater tanks right now with varying degrees of success over the past year. Four are the top 40B tanks in my basement fish room double stacks and one is a 36g bowfront rescue tank from a house my co-worker bought that contains 6 comet/common goldfish ~3". I'm planning to consolidate some tanks and end up with a recently-acquired 150g tall tank for comet/common goldfish and other cool-water species, such as weather loaches, reticulated hillstream loaches, and white cloud mountain minnows as well as a tank or 2 for tropical species I'd like to keep. The 40B double stacks (4 top, 4 bottom) are planned to be all saltwater QT/hospital tank(s), live rock culture tanks, and some species-specific or special-community-reef tanks at smaller scale.
Current top 40B tanks contain: Community with cherry barbs, zebra danios, harlequin rasboras, otocinclus catfish, and corydoras catfish; black mollies and Siamese algae eaters; few types of rainbowfish and Siamese algae eaters; and 4 weather loaches ~6"+ (too big and dirty for a 40B which caused poor success with my first attempt at white cloud mountain minnows and hillstream loaches, especially since I started too many tanks initially for proper research and this tank became last priority)
Val and dwarf sag. were some of the plants I tried, but I don't think my cheap lights were enough to let them thrive and most died off over time except in one tank.
I wish I could keep a jungle like yours! ...maybe in the tank resets in the future.
No surprise, I still have too many first priorities and too many dreams...
