I let my drinking water stand overnight after drawing it from the faucet.
My tap water has a very high pH, and 600-1200 ppm dissolved solids. I mix 5-30 gallons of watering solution at a time. For many orchids I use about 20% water directly out of the tap, and 80% collected rain. I add a tiny amount of vinegar, then add fertilizer or growth adjuvants. With the high minerals in the tap water I don't need to use calcium additives.
For a few orchids needing fewer minerals in the water I use only a tiny amount of tap water plus rain, plus small amounts of fertilizer. I use the tap water for the calcium.
A fair number of my plants are watered by a sprinkler on a timer, with my awful water. They get soaked every morning. This keeps washing out the salts, so they don't accumulate. I have found that, even for a lot of plants preferring purer water, they do better watered this way rather than waiting for me to water them by hand, which sometimes doesn't happen on schedule when I have a long day at work. This also works well for bifoliate and drought-adapted Cattleya seedlings in net pots with little medium, plants like C. intermedia, harrisoniana, walkeriana.
I water other kinds of tropical plants with straight tap water. I occasionally get magnesium deficiencies. A lot of them are accustomed to a more neutral or even acidic root environment than I give them. A neutral or slightly acidic root environment makes most minerals easier to take up by the roots. I give those plants magnesium in the form of Epsom salts when I notice deficiencies. I don't try to make those grow to perfection because they already grow like weeds - for example, Passiflora quadrangularis.
I've only had one rainstorm here since February, and I'm down to my last two barrels of rain. I hope we get some rain this winter.
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