Welcome!
Lots of good advice above. Def make sure to confirm things you learn on YouTube, I almost made some really bad mistakes getting started because all the you tubers are so confident and many are way off base.
For now I'd just focus on getting your head around the basic functions of a tank: how the bacteria process waste; how to balance nutrient import and export to achieve enough food for the creatures you like, but avoid a surplus that will fertilize algae; how to keep necessary elements like calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity in balance for coral growth. Most of us work backwards - we get a tank and muddle along until things start to go sideways, then we learn what we did wrong. Since you have some time to play with you can get a real leg up by researching that background info now. You will avoid some problems and be better positioned to address others as they come.
Besides the link that the grun posted, I've found the stickies in the reef chemistry forum really helpful, and also very good in the beginning is this list of "tank of the month" (totm) winners:
http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/totm-list Each month is a diff tank that is successful and beautiful. They are all different, so you can get an idea of how many ways there are to have a nice tank, and inspiration for how you'd like yours to be. Make like a folder or something to save pics of your fave tanks, and the diff fish and corals you like, so you can organize the info to be less overwhelming.
EDIT: Tanks are generally categorized as reef (has coral) or fowlr (fish only live rock). If you want coral you should look for "reef safe" fish. Also some fish eat snails and other inverts which people like to keep for algae-eating, and other fish are predators of smaller fish. Those considerations as well as natural territoriality make chosing fish a bit more complicated than fresh water, since our fish are often taken straight from the wild.
Corals are categorized as soft/mushroom, lps, sps; in that order of difficulty as far as what light they need and how tolerant they are of mistakes with water quality and such.
What are you inheriting? Starting from scratch with just a tank is really dif than taking on a running tank.
Good luck!