Growing plants out of water truly isn't the same as underwater. Terrariums, while beautiful, simply can never have the garden-eque nature of aquatic plants. There have been some advancements, especially from
ADA, in popularizing terrestrially-grown "aquascapes", but they always lack the nuance and mystery of an aquatic environment.
I care far, far more about the plants I grow than the fish I keep. Sure, I care about the fish too, but
plants are the focus of the hobby for me. Not having fish, or keeping few fish, means that there are fewer changes to nutrient levels through fish waste, and CO2 can be cranked without threat to the inhabitants.
Fish are just one part of the hobby. In America, "fish tanks" FAR outweigh "aquascapes" in popularity and common knowledge. I'm always baffled by statements like "what's the point" in any preference-based hobby, because the point is to
just do what you like. Is there a "point" to gardening without livestock to accompany it? Is there a point to keeping flowers, instead of growing tomatoes?
These are my aquatic gardens, and I love and care for the plants within them, simple as that. I've never called my aquascapes my "fish tanks", because the tanks aren't about fish for me, they're about the plants, the scapes, and the artistry of combining and maintaining all of it.
For the record, I usually do keep fish in most of my tanks, but only to add life, movement, and beauty. I take care of them well, but I spend far more time admiring, studying, and focusing on the plants than I do the fish. Nothing wrong with either end of the spectrum, just how I prefer the hobby.
If you don't understand the appeal, I get that. "Fish tanks" are what most of us learn about as kids, and as we age very few of us ever truly develop the urge to grow beautiful underwater gardens the way many of us do here at Scape Crunch. If you get a couple of years of robust aquascape plant growth under your belt, there is the chance you'll get what I mean. Successfully planting, growing, shaping, and maintaining these underwater gardens and landscapes is a beautiful art form that combines life, light, color, shaping, spacing, visual weight, negative space, contrasting texture/color/shape, ALL in a nuanced, changing/breathing/living ecosystem. I genuinely think that this hobby (aquascaping, not fish keeping) is one of the most underrated, complex, nuanced, and skillful forms of human expression that has ever existed.
I'm an animal guy first, last, and always 
