1. The intricacy and balance needed to create one of the world's most perfectly formed environments: the Ocean. I think there's a chemist/perfectionist inside of all of us marine hobbyists. it's very rewarding to see your marine life flourish in an environment that you created for them... in your home!
2. It helps me relax. There's a reason I pay to get into the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the like. It's because there's something fascinating about how beautiful and rare some of these sea creatures are. For me, when I'm at home, sometimes I just sit and watch. I watch the watchman goby and my pistol shrimp (what an interesting duo). The watchman hangs out in the cave the pistol shrimp made, and the pistol shrimp is constantly cleaning up all the sand the watchman is kicking around. This is just one of the many awesome traits that I get to see... this happens in the wild, and it's happening in my tank. Simply fascinating. I could pop in a DVD and watch it on my TV or I could sit in front of my tank. Pretty sweet to have the latter at my disposal. Also, how cool is it that an anemone and clown prefer to be together. Two totally different species altogether really help each other out.
3. There's always something new to learn about the hobby. It's very organic in design. New techniques are being found all the time, and advances in equipment are also interesting to read about. Also, there are so many fish species out there, and all of them have a different compatibility with each other, which is another dynamic to throw into the mix. It's great to see on this forum some of the more rare species too. There's an angel for sale on another site for like $20k or something crazy like that. I don't remember what it's called.
4. It's a great way to get the whole family involved. My wife thought I was an idiot for getting into the hobby, but she loves it now too. We also got it because of my 8 month old daughter. She loves watching the fish. All of the bright colors are awesome. My wife didn't want me to get into the hobby because she's stingy with money, but when we went shopping together at the local fish store, we came planning on spending like $50 or something. Well because she came with me, she was like "I want this one, and that one, and oooh this is pretty too!" We ended up spending almost $300 in corals alone.
This hobby is fascinating to many people. I have friends come to hang out all the time and they love looking at my tanks. It's something I think a lot more people would have if it didn't come across as such an intimidating hobby. It's actually really easy when you know what you're doing... but you have to know what you're doing!
Hope that helped.
