A lot of help please :)

[Alicia]

Ok, I have been out of the hobby for about 4 years now, and I am planning on starting up again in about a month. I am buying a house finally and I will have the space to set up my 72 gallon bowfront aquarium.
So, here is what I have: 72 gallon bowfront tank, 2 hang on he back filters that are both rated for 70 gallon tanks (penguin brand) both have biological filters on them, and obviously a hood and light. Otherwise everything else in the tank will be new. I was thinking about Yellow Labs for fish, but I need to know about how many (also open to other suggestions, I love the looks of all the blue fish ).
I also need to know about the substrate. I have been reading abunch of threads on here and have been getting really confused on the whole subject. Is there some kind of substrate that controls the PH or does that matter with these fish? Like I said, I'm confused.
I am sure that I will have a lot more questions as I get closer to setting up my tank.

 

[blue2fyre]

Welcome!

Since you are looking into yellow labs I would suggest setting up a mbuna tank. You can have a great looking set up with lots of yellow and blue. For the size tank you have I think the filtration will do for now. You may want to update in the future since mbuna usually are overstocked. For starters the "best" substrate for mbuna is sand. You can look into pool filter sand which is a nice white color, it's also pretty cheap, just make sure to clean it very well.
Mbuna like higher Ph with hard water. Do you know how your water tests out of the tap? To help buffer the water you can use limestone or texas holey rock. If you want to use a different type of rocks then you can just put some crushed coral in the filter to help keep the Ph up.
Now on to stocking. Mbuna can be pretty nasty with each other but with appropriate stocking it is managable. For a tank that size I would recomend 4 maybe 5 different species with 1 male per 4 females. Yellow labs are a great choice! They are colorful and relatively peaceful for mbuna. I would also suggest PS acei, (a nice purple mbuna with yellow fins) and rusty cichlids (rystu color withj some purple). All three off these species tend to get along well with each other and are less aggressive.
Some other species to look into are Cynotilapia Afra, there are a lot of varients and lots of choices. Many people like Ps demasoni, but they are very aggressive and need to be stocked in numbers of 12+. With the size tank you have it is very doable.

Some species to stay away from are Kenyi(Pseudotropheus lombardoi), Golden cichlid(Melanochromis auratus), and bumblebee cichlid(Metriaclima crabro). These species are very aggressive and can be quite a head ache. Sadly they are readily available at most Pet Stores.
Just shop around and see what fish you like, we can help you figure out the final stocking.

 

[Alicia]

Sounds great!
I'm not too sure on the PH or hardness of the water yet because it's in a different town, but I can find out as soon as we move into our house; should be within the next week or two.
I might be able to upgrade the filtration before I set everything up. Just let me know what I should get