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[Xen0n]

That's a good idea. 
I wonder, in our case, since the source of the water is supposedly fresh, and the only problem is the natural-wall piping used to deliver it (if I understand this correctly,) would the screw pump part of the desalination plant be necessary, or would just a pipe network composed only of constructed floors/walls be sufficient?  I may test it out without a pump first, both because my small fortress doesn't have the manpower to spare for a full time pumper, and I've heard of fps woes attributed to having windmills / waterwheels and axles and such.

EDIT:  Well I went and double checked using 't,' and apparently even the wells channelled directly onto the surface of my brook have buckets containing "water laced with salt/mud."  Does that mean I accidentally started on a salt water brook embark without realising it, or could my brook have become salty later?  Either way, I guess I will be needing to set up a full water purification plant after all .

[Broseph Stalin]

Exactly the issue I'm getting xen0n, also Broseph, maybe wells only work for saltwater (water from the ocean)?

The water I'm getting from comes from a river which the walls and floor are made of natural rocks, so my guess is that even though it's not ocean water (saltwater) it's still being laced with some amounts of salt.

My well's bucket show that the water is laced with salt, and dwarves that are cleaned still gets some minor infections, so it really looks like this water is not "pure" enough..

"Purify with magma", since I don't have magma around, I'll build a mini desalination plant. Heh.
Xen0n, I'll post it here when it's done, because I'm also taking water from a brook (the river..that has a brook above it).

It may take some work/time to build (at least for me, since I'm building a castle), but this will be my first complete, awesome fortress. It NEEDS MAGIC.

Your well doesn't actually purify saltwater, it's a bug that allows well water to be used even though it contains salt. Dwarves won't clean a patient with saltwater straight from a source so you are experiencing the happy benefits of the bug. Those infections may be due to a lack of soap or failure of your dwarves to clean the patients quickly enough, I love saltwater maps and I've never noticed any ill effects over using well drawn saltwater. 

[Xen0n]

Sorry to bring it back up, but it's been ~5 years gametime, I've installed dwarven bathtubs all over my fortress, (paving over them if they appear contaminated), regularly run dfcleanmap, and still find migrants coming down with the same set of symptoms shortly after arriving.  If you have a relatively big fortress, with thousands of items all over the place, any of which might be harbouring the infection, is there any reasonable way to decontaminate the whole place without sealing it off and starting fresh?  I wouldn't mind so much except the particular Syndrome that seems to be spreading basically burns off the feet and eyes, so all my dwarves are "Sluggish," "No ability to Stand," and "Vision Lost."  As you might imagine, things do not get done quickly in the Fortress of Obscurelens. 

[Eddren]

Sure.
Put all of your dwarves outside for the next couple of days,
Water-purge the entire place.

[Gabeux]

Your well doesn't actually purify saltwater, it's a bug that allows well water to be used even though it contains salt. Dwarves won't clean a patient with saltwater straight from a source so you are experiencing the happy benefits of the bug. Those infections may be due to a lack of soap or failure of your dwarves to clean the patients quickly enough, I love saltwater maps and I've never noticed any ill effects over using well drawn saltwater.

Hmm, I see..
Still, I made two attempts to use a pump to desalinate water and then put it on a cistern with built walls & floors, STILL the wells get "water enlaced with salt". I wonder if anyone else gets this too, or if it's just me and Xen0n.
Not sure if this 'salt' is really doing anything bad to the dwarves though, as they use the wells as if it was 100% clean.

My 2 wells are getting water from my small desalination "device", both wells has built cisterns and both wells get water enlaced with salt..
It made me frustrated because it took 4 hours total to build both desalination-devices and they didn't work.

[Broseph Stalin]

Your well doesn't actually purify saltwater, it's a bug that allows well water to be used even though it contains salt. Dwarves won't clean a patient with saltwater straight from a source so you are experiencing the happy benefits of the bug. Those infections may be due to a lack of soap or failure of your dwarves to clean the patients quickly enough, I love saltwater maps and I've never noticed any ill effects over using well drawn saltwater.

Hmm, I see..
Still, I made two attempts to use a pump to desalinate water and then put it on a cistern with built walls & floors, STILL the wells get "water enlaced with salt". I wonder if anyone else gets this too, or if it's just me and Xen0n.
Not sure if this 'salt' is really doing anything bad to the dwarves though, as they use the wells as if it was 100% clean.

My 2 wells are getting water from my small desalination "device", both wells has built cisterns and both wells get water enlaced with salt..
It made me frustrated because it took 4 hours total to build both desalination-devices and they didn't work.

I've never successfully made a purification cistern, I've tried a few times but I always end up just using the magical well.

[Xen0n]

Hmm after a bit more digging (figurative), I'm thinking my well problem may not be because of the mysterious salt, but because of mud?  All my wells are either just 1 z-level deep, or if they are 2  z-levels deep, have stairs just 1 z-level below them, so mud can accumulate just below the bucket.  I *think* this is a problem, because most of these wells all say "bucket full" as their q-status. "Bucket full" is not a very clearly explained or understood term judging by the lack of mention on the wiki and scarce info on the forums, but I think it amounts to "This well cannot be used because the bucket is all clogged up with something other than pure water."

After deciding this, I'm going to do a bit more digging (literal) to rework my plumbing.  Problem is, I don't know if there is a way to PREVENT mud from piling up in a well.  My current plan is to make all wells at least 2 z-levels deep, with just open space (no stairs/ramps in the well).  I think I may have to deconstruct and rebuild my wells too since I can't figure out how a "bucket full" status can ever go away (Every "bucket full" well has a bucket containing "water laced with _blank_", Dwarves don't seem smart enough to clean them themselves.)

Does anyone know if the whole "Make wells more than 1 z-level deep" idea means to have multiple levels of water, or to have a GAP of air between the water and top of the air?  Also, does the whole 'constructed walls keep water from being salty' apply to preventing mud as well?

[Xen0n]

Also, I'm discovering some *fun* side effects of the syndrome, which usually manifests as a fever before moving onto the more exciting symptoms.  I've been having dwarves suddenly die of thirst out of nowhere, in my holding cells, who had apparently fallen unconscious while walking over a cage trap, and just now one of my better soldiers got a fatal case of 'large, serrated spinning discitis' to the brain, since KO'd dwarves set off traps. 
To top it off, my brook is drained since a Forgotten Beast decided to smash the floodgates I put in as an emergency drain, which were right next to where the brook starts on the map edge so I have no idea how to fix that (can't build pumps that close to the map edge), so this is how I discovered my hospital wells weren't cutting it on their own, since even with burrowing a full medical staff just to hospital and what I thought were water sources (If I don't keep them burrowed there everyone in the hospital dies of thirst), the main brook water sources were dry, and the backups in the hospital were "Bucket full" as mentioned before.  So I'm losing more people to that first Forgotten beast than anything else, even years later.  Almost hoping this my first fort will go Mad Max soon so I can build a new one   Regarding the water purge, I have so many items in the fort, which is huge, that to set up a purging system and run it, then use the fort without any of the items it had (they would get washed away, right?) just seems way too big an investment and would be simpler to build a new fort from scratch. 

Honestly, would like to fight some FBs but now my policy is "No contact under any circumstances" since it carries the risk of crippling all productivity in my fort for the rest of the game, which is a bit too steep a price.  If only FB extract had a timer of say, 1 year before it fades on it's own...

[Gabeux]

Xen0n, about the 2-z levels deep, it's about the water source IIRC. So you make a "cistern"/"water tank" (or the water storage your well draws water from), 2-z levels deep, and fill it up, so mud may still pile up on the first z-level, but on the second level it will be clean.
My "desalination thing" general idea looks like this (from the side, undetailed):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And still I get water laced with salt.

"Bucket full" status I think it refers that the bucket is full of water only, doesn't mean that the well's clogged with mud.

I'll still try later on to make water 100% pure, but I got too frustrated into investing time on this without any success. Argh.

[Xen0n]

Okay, that's a pretty snazzy filtration setup there.  Even with all constructed walls/floors you get salty water?  I haven't gotten around to putting up my filter / constructed wall cisterns/pipes, since I've given up on the 'laced with salt' issue for the time being (relying on the 'magical well desalination'), until I can get my dwarves to actually USE their wells! 
In my fort, every well that has "bucket full" status, when I use 't' to check it, has a bucket containing "water laced with blood/mud/forgotten beast extract/salt etc."  I found out when I had my nurse dwarves burrowed to areas just containing "bucket full" wells, my patients died of thirst.  Only when I expanded the burrows to newly made wells that weren't "bucket full" yet (and whose buckets showed empty upon checking with 't'), did they start doing 'give water' jobs.  I'm hoping that extra z-level of clear water will alleviate all my 'bucket full's, at least for mud.  Not sure how to get blood out of wells / wellbuckets...

[peskyninja]

My Militia captain had his heart removed.

[Zaerosz]

Is...
Is he still alive?

[Eddren]

Yes.
He's lost all of his blood, but it turns out that he was just about to complete the ritual to become a Lich anyway.
Well, I guess he's dead..But at least he's UNdead.

[Angel Of Death]

Yes.
He's lost all of his blood, but it turns out that he was just about to complete the ritual to become a Lich anyway.
Well, I guess he's dead..But at least he's UNdead.

Is he rotting all over? I say you upload your save for !!SCIENCE!!

[Eddren]

Nah, 'twas just joking.
Although, that would be pretty cool, and I need to experiment with creating a creature that will actually exude a slime that removes tissue on contact.
First the skin,
Then fat,
Then the muscles,
Then go wash up!