How Much Water Should a Humdifier Use?

I am a newbie with 5 days under my belt. I read in one of the posts a lady stated that the water in her reservoir lasted all week. Is that a good idea? The instructions I received from my RT/DME at delivery were to clean the reservoir every day with soap, rinse thoroughly and air dry it before the next use. "You know mold and bacteria grow in standing water," he said. Weeell, this is a little time consuming, especially the air drying part. Also I only use about a quarter of an inch per night of distilled water, so far. I am using the disposable reservoir and two were delivered with the machine so I could rotate them, but I think it would not dry out in one day. The reservoirs cannot be opened to manually dry them with a paper towel. This seems to be a design flaw, as well as the fact that there is no handle or tabs to grip when extracting the reservoir from the machine. Filling the reservoir is messy too if you don't have a very steady hand. Also the reservoir retaining bar does not stay down evenly when depressed. My initial impression is I personally don't see any need for this retaining bar since the receiving ports on the machine have little o-rings that seal the reservoir into the machine tight enough to hold it in position, as well as the metal heater contact plate which wedges in pretty tight. I know there is a reusable reservoir available for this machine. Question is, can it be opened for manual drying? If it can, this might be the best way to go. Does anyone know if it can be? Yes I know they want to sell those disposables at a clip of two every three months whereas only one reusable is necessary every six months according to the literature I received with my machine. Can anyone give me some advice?
PS: I haven't had any other problems so far and tolerate the mask. My first night I kept waking up but that seems to have passed now. My diagnosis was moderate to severe and the machine is set on 7 which is supposed to be quite low and the humidity is at default 2.5. I feel better and hope I continue to improve. Thanks for any help you can give.

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bacteria and mold have a hard time growing in distilled water, lol, now with regular tap water that's a different story, i have only broken down my reservoir to clean it thoroughly about 5 or 6 times since i got it, i only top it off as needed between cleanings. congrats on getting through the first five days, dunno about the rest of the stuff, i.e. reusable reservoir, i've been gone for a while so i am a little behind on all the recent news.