Problems with custom fields

In my theme I have a scroller which displays 2 static stories and pulls in the last blog post from a particular category. That works fine.

I also have 4 custom fields that are displayed in divs on the same page. This works fine also, without the scroller on the page.

It’s like the two scripts interfere with each other, I feel like its a simple syntax mistake but I have stared at it for too long and can’t see it. Thanks much for your help!

<div class="feature" id="3" style="display:none;">
	<img src="/wp-content/themes/TwoTurtles/imgs/coralFeature.jpg" alt="Coral"/>

	<?php $index = new WP_query('cat=3&showposts=1');
	if($index->have_posts()) : while ($index->have_posts()) : $index->the_post(); ?>
	<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
	<small>Published on <?php the_time('F d, y'); ?></small>
	<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
	<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
</div>

<div class="inner tl">
	<h2><a href="/?page_id=22">Freshwater Fish</a></h2>
	<img src="/wp-content/themes/TwoTurtles/imgs/guppy-Google100.jpg" alt="fish"/>
	<p><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'freshwater', true); ?>
	</p>
</div>