Water Quality: It does make a difference.

I use the water from my dehumidifier. They seem to like it.

The most obvious are the Paphs - they arrived early in the summer with some root rot and some rot at the base of the oldest leaves (they had 3-4 leaves then). Using the dehumidifier allowed me to let them dry out a bit between watering with no apparent ill effects (which are reported with salty water especially when the roots dry a bit). One is growing rapidly and the other is progressing moderately currently.

Does everyone know you can out-gas the chlorine from your tap water? Fill a bucket and let it set uncovered overnight for the chlorine to slowly give itself up to the atmosphere! I learned that as a kid with aquariums and applied it to my budgies when I started breeding them. I water the orchids with water from my dehumidifier. Humidity in my basement runs 50 to 60% even with the dehumidifier running.

Yes you can. If you put a bubbler in the bucket it will happen much quicker. OR get the de-chlorinator for aquarium water and it will do the same thing.

Cheers,
BD

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We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. ...Hmmm? .

I use tap water for all mine except a few. The water comes from our chocolate river and is treated with chloramine, and probably fluorine, etc. before it goes through the tap as clear water. The water is usually near neutral but slightly alkaline. Phals, Cyms, Catts, Masd, Phrags, Paphs, onc all get the same water. Phrags are written in literature to be very sensitive to disolved solids but tap water has been fine for me as long as the media stays wet.

Disas are especially intolerant of poor water so I water it with reverse osmosis. I just got mine and I hope I can bloom it soon. I also water phrag kovachii seedlings with R/O water just because it was so expensive, I won't take a chance with screwing up the seedlings with poor water (maybe when they are large plants I will use tap water).

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Fren
Orchidacea are the largest and most diverse of the Angiospermae, and includes 800 genera and 30 000 species

I use the waste water out of my tropical aquarium when I perform my 25% weekly water change. The water has a pH of 6.7, and is very soft. I use a standard aquarium dechlorinator. All of my plants seem to do ok on it.

I think chloramines are much harder to evaporate off. I read that they stay in the water even if you let it sit open.