I want to try my hand at a salt water tank, I am a relatively experienced freshwater tank keeper. I wanted it to be a nice little nano tank because im limited on space in my apt I was thinking about a 3 gal tank ( cant post link because ive only posted twice, Lame)

I just wanted to have a small piece of live coral in there and maybe an invert or a small fish...does any body have a few pointer for me or maybe an idea of a fish (not likely to jump b/c aquarium has no lid) or maybe a cool looking invert (shrimp, etc) thanks alot

Perhaps get a clownfish and a snail, and some mushroom corals. The mushrooms do fairly well in a nano and can tolerate things better than other more delicate corals. Clownfish are hardy and the snail should be also, just take good care of the tank... the bigger, the easier ;)

A 3gl will be difficult to keep much of any fish in. A 3gl is difficult to keep the parameters steady. A 10gl would be much better, you could keep a couple fish, have plenty of LR for biofilteration and some corals too. Lighting a 10gl with PC or T5 wouldn't cost too much and not become a heating issue in a small tank.

Good stuff i think im going to do with a 10 gallon. Thanks

Much better choice! Thank us later, lol!

Definately go bigger when it's your first reef. I started off with a 20 gallon, but didn't stock it completely because I wanted to be able to move stuff if I wanted to. If you can find a really nice Nanocube, aquapod or biocube those are what I would recommend. Good luck with things.