I have got a 10 gallon reef and if I could I would certainly recommend going larger but you can still have success with a smaller system. I think all the talk of how hard it is to control nutrients in small tanks is largely overblown. From what I have experienced, a 2 gallon water change once every week or two works wonders. I run a tidal 110 HOB filter with chemipure blue nano bags and filter floss for my filtration system and use a single old school AI prime for lighting. The one piece of equipment that I find vital is a small auto top off system. Salinity can fluctuate pretty aggressively in a 10 gallon tank if you are not topping off every day or so. For this reason I picked up a small all in one optical sensor ATO setup from BRS and haven't looked back. For stocking just stick to a clownfish and another small fish or two and you should be chilling. Also do not over do the clean up crew. There is not a lot of food to go around in a 10 gallon system so a snail/hermit or two really performs all of the scavenging you need. If you throw 5 snails, 5 hermits, an urchin, and a fighting conch in there I almost guarantee that all but 2 or 3 of them will starve and die.
Really the best advice that I can give you from my experience as a nano reefer is to just keep things simple. I find that when I run into trouble it is because I try to get to fancy and 10 gallons of water volume is very unforgiving if you mess with the chemistry. A small water change once a week or so, a shallow sand bed, and lots of flow are how I run my tank when it does its best.
