No Chef, they are not. You've had a good grounding in fishkeeping obviously, so you'd have no worries in keeping a reef tank. It's common sense and technology nowadays mate...with all the advanced hardware that's available you can't really go wrong. Some hard corals are still a bit iffy to keep, but 80% of the marine life that's available in the shops will be quite happy as long as the water is {a} wet and {b} salty. I found a native marine tank harder to keep than a tropical reef tank...bass are pretty hard to keep over long periods. The best place to start is a shop called The Watford Aquarium...they specialise in marines, and will be more than happy to put you on the right track as a reef keeper. They sell a small booklet, very cheap, which contains all the info you could ever need. Email me your address and I'll send you my copy, mate....have a study of it and make your decision after reading it.
The only REAL problem in reefkeeping is what system do you choose ? There are so many out there, some filtered, some not, some filtered naturally....some cost the earth, some cost no more than a decent tropical tank. The main thing is, once you've made your choice of system...stick to it like glue, you'll only end up totally confused and out of pocket if you try and change systems during the life of a tank. Oh...one more thing. Make sure you when you set up your big marine tank, for gawds sake make sure the tank is sitting on something sturdy. Salt water and carpets don't mix...been there, done that !!