I've had a salt water aquarium for about 10 years...one of my favorite hobbies...my best advice is get the right set up the first time i.e filtration, lighting etc and you will save yourself ALOT of time and money. If you look at taking care and running this hobby as "labour intensive" then it probably isn't the hobby for you. Me personally with the right equipment it's not that much work really. Daily inspection and checking of water ph, nitrogen etc., might be a little algae scraping off the glass...maybe not if you have the right fish. Feeding if they need. All of this takes about 10-15 minutes a day...in my opinion not really that hard. Then I do a %25 water change once a month with aged synthetic salt water. Not that hard either As far as the fish go, just do your research...just like growing erb every fish has it's own characteristics and difficulty. yes some fish a hard to keep, some are very expensive and hard to keep, but with the right set up (equipment) and right knowledge of the fish you put in your tank, in my opinion salt water is no harder than fresh water set ups.