Welcome to the hobby!
I think most everyone starts out with Africans the way you have, myself included, pick one of this and one of that. Works great with a fish for 6-8 months until they get sexually mature then all
[email protected] breaks loose, some fish die, and you trade the
nasty fish in and get another pretty fish, rinse and repeat. You end up getting sick and dead fish doing this and IME this approach can be very frustrating
If you go all male you can get a
very pretty tank - hap/peacocks is definitely the way to try all male, it can be work and I would strongly suggest at least a 10 gallon tank on hand in case one of the boys goes hyper-dominant or is getting picked on.
Another approach is to go breeding groups.
The idea is you buy approximately 8 young fish of each of 3 species for a 55 and grow them up together. You don't get the variety, but you do get to see breeding behavior and any troublemakers find a new home at the Local Fish Store (LFS) once they become a problem.
There is a link to cookie cutter suggestions for a 55 gallon tank
here. The numbers they show are for final stocking of sexually mature adults. The caveat being I would not get anything that is highly or extremely aggressive in the profile section or gets larger than 6in or so.
Good Luck.