When making Ice Cubes, should I use hot or cold water to begin with?

Common sense. Besides...if you use hot water, youre using the water that sits in the tank for longer time, which could make it stale tasting. Always use fresh cold water for ice or cooking.

If you want clear ice cubes - use distilled water or boil water and let cool a total of three separate times. Distilled / bottled water is the best for this but kind of expensive just for ice cubes - but totally worth it for a special occasion.

The opacity of ice cubes comes mostly from minerals, not air. Cold water has fewer minerals because hot water picks them up in the hat water heater. If you want perfectly clear water, used distilled water. Sometimes you can get purified water cheaper at an aquarium store.

To begin with ...: Use boiling water if you want your ice cubes to be 100% clear and transparent when you take them out.

Well that makes sense, clever! Well how about that, boil water x3. Great question, I had never thought about that.

boiling water to get them to be crystal clear

you always want to use cold water for every thing but bathing. hot water collects sediments and minerals that naturally fall to the bottom of your heater tank because it can sit idle for a number of hours. cold water comes from your pump or the city supply and is not as stagnate as hot water and gives off not as much taste or oder as far as the cubes cracking on you don't fill the tray up to the very top will cure this

The colder the better imho. Think about it, the colder the water, the faster the freezing time, the less chance for air to get into the mix and make your cubes splinter.

Cold. Hot water can cause your ice tray to crack. It also causes those splinters.