What do I need to create water with negatively charged ions?

Darkmatterx76 wrote:

The electricity aligns all the molecules in a very ordered pattern which is what causes the geometric seam pattern when it starts to melt. As for why it prevents bubbles, I'm not entirely sure, but my guess is that it excites the molecules enough to release any air dissolved in the water.

Interestingly enough, water is actually a terrible conductor of electricity. Electrical current jumps through water piggybacking on the various mineral impurities in the water, not the water itself. For that reason, using distilled water might actually work against you if you try to make the water have a negative charge with electricity. The current might not be able to go through the water properly if there's a lack of minerals.

Where's an electrical engineer when I need one!? :/

Normal ice has a well defined structure with the hydrogens on one molecule bonding to oxygens on other molecules in a regular way, the structure is more spaced out that in liquid water which is why ice floats. I'm sure I've got a material science book somewhere with the structure illustrated.

At extreme pressure/temperature there are other forms of ice structures - I think at least 5 of them. These will be well outside the realms of our experience but it's possible an electric field promotes one of them so it's taken instead of the more normal form.

I'd class pure water as a poor conductor rather than a terrible one. Ultra pure water has a resistance of 18 megaohms per cm while many insulators are far above that. FWIW Current flow is not actually necessary to align the molecules an electric field is sufficient.