There are plants in the tank in the second picture, but they didn't hadn't had much time to grow at the time of the picture, and we hadn't replaced any of the ones that had died. At one point our 180 gallon tank was pretty thick with plants, but those all died when we tried to treat the tank for green slime algae (a nasty type of bacteria). Our 300 gallon tank was also heavily planted when we had foxtail (not the stuff that grows in fields, but a really fast-growing water plant) in it, but the foxtail completely took over, killing many other plants in the process. When we removed the foxtail, there was little else left to plant, leaving us with what you see.

When we get back home, we'll be sure to plant that tank properly. The Cichlids don't do well with plants (they tear them up and eat them), so the only plant we'll keep in there is floating foxtail.

I'm assuming that's what you meant by planted tank and that you weren't encouraging me to start up a terrarium or anything. :)