MW's comment about testing the pH for a few days, regarding the work done on nearby pipes, made me think that indeed it's always a good idea as a beginner to be getting those periodic (they don't need to be too often) entries into your logbook of what the tap water pH is. That way you can be getting an idea of what the overall range of variation and begin to feel more confident about what different species your type of water will be ideal for. With -most- beginner trop species it won't make much difference as they'll have a wide range of tolerance, but its just one more fine-tuning thing that can't hurt to be getting a feel for.
So as a beginner, one of the things you want to be doing while waiting for the bacteria, is to be doodling little lists of your species choices and doing all the background homework to find their prefered ranges of temperature and pH and writing those down in your list.. also whether the species is delicate or not, whatever you can learn. Then you just take a look at all that and be thinking what temperature represents the best compromise and how they look with respect to pH and all that sort of stuff.
~~waterdrop~~