Agree. Water's not really the problem. I've successfully kept all my fish in the mid 7s pH, moderate hardness for years, including Malawis, Tanganyikans and SA, including some wild SA. But typical Malawis will be too much for most Suriname type geos-- would have said so based on experience keeping them separately, but, in fact, I had to do it temporarily last year due to a long power outage that had me juggling things after the derecho storm last year and the geos were not happy. I'd expect the same for Satanoperca.
Brazil type geos, don't know, maybe with haps and peacocks (not mbuna), though not something I'd do. Another issue is typical Malawi cichlids do better when overcrowded by SA standards.