What is your setup?
Sand or Stone?(Gravel)
Rock or Wood?
Live or Fake Plants?
Other Species in Tank?

I Have a 40 Gallon with stone bottom and fake logs everywhere which I hope to convert to drift wood. Fake Plants which I also want to convert to living and just to Africans in the tank.

Sand - personally i think a must they love to dig it
Rock scape - i used flat black slate rock and stack with round river rock
live plants - 2 anubias and 1 crinum calamastratus they leave them alone
also 1 fancy pleco they leave alone

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Tank
125g african cichlids making it work
75g rimless Reef in progress

I am doing my first Cichlid tank. 55 gallon pool filter sand and lace rock. I'm doing all lake Malawi. I'm really enjoying these guys but I don't know why at 50 yrs old this is my first real cichlid tank.

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29 gal planted,7 Harlequin Rasbora, 8 Neon Tetra,3 Bolivian Rams,3 Albino Cory,2 Emerald Green Cory
55 gal Lake Malawi
15 gal betta tank

I have a 29 gallon that I made into a Cichlid tank. I have a gravel and sand combination so that the fish have a place to dig but I get the small rock look as well. I have a beautiful piece of drift wood that I got at Petco of all places as well as a nice small piece I pulled out the river in Maine. I do have a tall grey rock type thing with lots of openings and caves. It was originally sold at Petsmart as an airstone type of thing, but I just never hooked up the air hose and it looks great in my opinion. My plants are fake and though I constantly keep thinking I want to go with real plants, I am quite happy with the look of the tank and can't bring myself to tear it all up right now.

I've used sand in all of my tanks ever since my favorite yellow tail acei decided that they would be a great snack and ended up with a busted intestine. Having said that, now that I use sand I'll never go back. I absolutely love the stuff because its very cheap and easy to clean. As for decorating in my main tank I have a giant piece of Texas Holey Rock surrounded by an assortment of fake plants. If you have a fairly big budget I would recommend getting a good size piece of Holey Rock with plenty of holes to house your mbuna. A 35 pound piece will run around $100 with shipping. I got lucky and found a guy who sold me over 80 lbs of rock for 80$ off of Craigslist. Holey Rock is great not only because it provides various caves for hiding and breeding but it also doubles as a great ph buffer. A good piece will buffer your water to a steady 8.2 ph. Holey Rock is hands down the best aquarium decor if you ask me. Good luck on your new setup!!!