mistersprinkles. We do not have the tank yet. Its being build after we make the deposit for the entire thing to be built.
I do have a little idea about the nitrogen cycle. Like I mentioned before, we are having the aquarium personel come over our home to do the installation as well as the conditioning for the water. They already told us that it needs about 2-3 days before adding fish. BTW LOVED the photos you sent.That's excatly what we are having in mind
Although you CAN add fish after 2-3 days I would strongly suggest you have the place that is setting up the tank bring some cycled filter media from their place of business to kick start your tank. That way you can add a small number of fish right away.
Otherwise, it would be highly advisable to cycle the tank using pure ammonia at 4PPM (you'll need a test kit) for approximately 22-30 days until the biological filtration bacteria have a chance to establish themselves.
You see, the most important component of aquarium filtration is "BIO-filtration".
Bio filtration occurs when bacteria (who need time to build up in your tank) process the ammonia that occurs when organics decay in the water (ie, fish poo) into nitrite. Then another species of bacteria transforms that into nitrate. The nitrate is removed by you when you do partial water changes, which you should do at least once a week, regardless of what anybody else tells you.
For the bottom I suggest you use Pool Filter Sand. It looks awesome, and its cheap. Easy to clean too, just vaccuum the poo and uneaten food off the surface.
For fish, if you want something beautiful and easy to start off with, I suggest a group of 12 demasoni (deally 1 male 11 females) and a group of 5 yellow labidochromis (1 male 4 females). Both of these fish are very tough, forgiving of beginner mistakes, affordable, and easily and readily available.
They look like this:
For food I highly suggest either New Life Spectrum (NLS) cichlid formula or Dainichi Color FX.
For filtration, why don't you cancel that wet/dry filter you were going to order and go with a Fluval 406 and an Aquaclear 70 or 110. That's lots of filtration. These Mbuna won't mind the extra current.