Bay 12 Games Forum

I have a fortress near a brook, and because my murky pools were all freezing over every year (and because my military was complaining about having to drink from them anyway), I decided to divert some water from the brook through an underground aqueduct to a cistern where I could store it through the winter, and draw it up through a well. This has worked great, except that the water the dwarves get from the well always seems to be stagnant with a grime covering. This is even though the well descends into a flow coming directly from the brook. Is there something more I need to do to make the water not be stagnant?

Below is an image of what I've built (I've compressed the distance by about one and a half screens). You're looking at Z-1 below the level of the brook. I had my dwarves tunnel into the side of the water source, and off that tunnel I channeled out a little basin one more Z-level deep. The well is channeled into it from two floors above. The water in its bucket, and my dwarves' waterskins, is always stagnant.

I thought maybe this had to do with water not flowing per se, since it's just a dead-end spur off the brook, so I built the second (rubble-filled) tunnel that you see leading southwards; off the screen it turns west and reconnects with the brook to form a loop. The water is still stagnant.

Is it possible to have my plumbing provide non-stagnant water?