10 gallon tank

2x 4" Blood Red Parrot Cichlids

1x 5" pleco

These guys have been in this tank for 4-5 years and are WAY too big, not to mention it is filthy; lot's of feces everywhere. I haven't tested the water parameters yet but I will asap.

Anyway, here's the story. They are at my grandparent's house where I have come to visit and I would like to take them home with me when I leave on Wednesday. The tap water here is very hard and has a lot of iron and other minerals in it so I don't think I should use it to replace the water. I have a larger tank at home that is empty right now. I think it's 20 gallons but could be 30. I understand that this would be too small but I could keep the pleco in the 10 gallon and let the parrots have the 20 at least until I can get a bigger tank. One of the parrots has a white mass on his bottom lip. Despite all this, they seem to be in ok shape but I know for a fact that they could be so much happier.

Right now I need to know what I should do to make them comfortable and reduce the stress of this drive as much as possible. There is a Petco nearby so I will take a water sample to get tested tonight. I have a gravel vacuum on hand so I think to start I will just try to get all the poop out but if I could get some advice on what water to use, some suggestions on how to travel with them without killing them, and how I should approach this I would greatly appreciate it. They are beautiful fish and I hate to see them suffer.

****Update so far: pH was extremely acidic, very hard water, lot's of ammonia and Nitrates were high but Nitrites are good. I took all the gravel, rocks, and stuff out and will probably just throw it all away. I know they prefer sand to gravel anyway so it's not worth it to me to keep and clean. I siphoned all the water out and put them in a bucket of new water that had been dechlorinated and a little bit of their old water. Then I filled the tank up about 40%, more dechlorinator, added another 20% of the old water after the crap settled to the bottom and added some API Proper pH 8.2. They are back in the tank now and seem to be pretty happy. The water is still kind of gross from adding the old water but I'm hoping that I can do a 50% change when I get home and clear it up a bit. I'll take another water sample in tomorrow and test it. Now is the hard part where I wait to see if I've killed them though. :/ I'll be so heartbroken if they die overnight.