Walnut, if I ever started over, I would downsize, too. I'd drop to a 29 gallon Oceanic Bio Cube. That's a plug and play system, and I bet you would enjoy it. It's a large enough volume of water to handle minor swings, but small enough to cut down on maintenance. The single most peaceful thing in the tank is watching Nemo with an anemone, so I would build a tank around that. Like you said, add a few shrimp, maybe a couple of coral, and leave it at that. Clams are beautiful, but very finicky, and sea horses can't handle much water flow. Water is whipping in a full blown reef tank. My 90 gallon has a total flow of 3800 gph
Thanks for that info. It's been 30 years since I ran an aquarium so I figured things had moved on. We have a 90 gal outdoor fish pond installed indoors with goldfish and turtles, that is pretty easy to keep, usually 2 full water changes over the winter. I dip out water for the plants, and fill with fresh when the level goes down, so it's continuous partial changes.