A club for owners of Parrot Cichlids

I don't think I would want to put my fish in rusty orange water. Either you have a bad well or your pipes are shot. How big of tank are you trying to fill? Is it possible to fill your tank with someone elses water? We had very sulphuric well water in a place we rented but my fish didn't seem to mind it at all. I on the other hand, I got rashes from it. I would try to capture rain water or melt fresh snow and add it to my tank if you couldn't get better water elsewhere. There was a very good posting earlier by hollyca75 on how to safely transport your fish. Here is the post....

Transport depends on how far your moving, but will go something like this:
Dont feed fish the day before or the day of the move.

Move fish on last load, having new tank set up at new place if at all possible
Put each fish in its own 3-5 gal backet, 2/3 full of water, secure in your vehicle so it wont tip and slid, cover with something to prevent jumping, preferabbly something dark in color. Keep them in the interior of vehicle with you, keep radio low, heat on if its winter where you are.....
Keep as much tank water as possible, keep old gravel and filter pads WET, along with any deorations- this will help preserve your good bacteria.
Set up new tank and take care of fish first thing when arriving.

Use as much of the water from the move as possible- in case water chemistry is different at your new place- since your not feeding them for a bit- there will be less ammonia in the bucket water....

Good luck!