Update: I took the male pike back, he was stressing the female too much. I'll stick to one pike. Added a blue acara I had in quarantine for a couple weeks. He's doing great.
I was really pleasantly surprised today to find the orange morph of rainbow cichlid at the LFS. I had given up on the idea of rainbows until I found them, and I couldn't resist picking up a pair. However, they started eating my java moss immediately! I've had no trouble with cichlids tearing up plants until now, so I don't think I will tolerate this, as colorful as these fish are.
I am about to set up a 55g so I might move the rainbows there, along with any other fish that prove to be incompatible with this tank. Also, found some anomalochromis thomasi online and might order some. I will have too many fish, but again, once I decide the final stock, I will move the rest to the 55. Still undecided on the geos. Yours look good, more colorful than mine, but still, the ones I had before on white sand were bright bright almost golden yellow, so I may move them to the other tank and do light sand in that one or trade them. Anyways, I've got to figure this out and then I'll post some new pics when things get more settled.