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[OneRaven]

I just found a cave river in my current fortress and am getting ready to tap it. In the past, I've had problems with Tower Caps growing in the plumbing and clogging the water flow, so I'm going to take precautions to avoid that. Currently, the only way I've found to reliably prevent plants from growing is to pave the channel, but I like to play with flow amounts shown, and water on a road is displayed only as ~. What other ways are there to prevent tower caps from growing in the pipes?

[Derakon]

If I recall correctly, once the water gets above a certain level nothing can grow in it. So just don't let the water level remain shallow for an excessive period of time.

[thobal]

dosnt smoothing prevent towercap growth?

[Quietust]

Smoothing does not prevent tower-cap growth.

As for seeing the water levels in a paved channel, all you need to do is use the (t) menu and (h)ide all of the building materials you used in each section of road (use d-b-h if there are no other items down there) and you'll be able to see the water levels just fine.

[Skorpion]

Smoothing removes mud, is all. Tower-caps grow on smooth, constructed, and even engraved floors.

[SquirrelWizard]

could you just plant farm plots in your pipes since they supposedly block all forms of vegitation?

[Kanddak]

could you just plant farm plots in your pipes since they supposedly block all forms of vegitation?

That should work, but you'd have to flood your pipes to muddy them, then drain them to make the farm plots, then flood them again. Pretty inefficient when compared to building a road and hiding it.

[DeathOfRats]

You could just make it a stockpile that doesn't accept anything. It doesn't prevent towercap saplings from sprouting, but it does prevent them from reaching maturity.

Not sure if it shows the flow numbers, though.

[Quietust]

Farms and stockpiles will hide flow numbers just like a paved road. As I mentioned, though, paved roads can be (h)idden so as to make the flow numbers visible again.

[Hyndis]

Construct a paved road. This is the most cost effective way to prevent trees from growing on muddy ground.

Alternatively, if foot access is not important, you can use fortifications. For example, you can make a 3 tile wide aqueduct with this floorplan:

X=clear floor
F=smoothed wall, then carved into fortification
N=natural, solid wall

NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN
NFXFN

Water will flow through the fortifications. Plants cannot grow there, so there is absolutely no danger of plants blocking the water. Then outside of the carved fortifications is just plain old natural stone walls that contains the water. End result is that it only takes 1 tile of access way, which may or may not be blocked but you get 3 tiles wide of water flow. Also, you produce a minimum of loose stone and your engravers get lots of practice.

[Puck]

Seriously.... towercaps grow on CONSTRUCTED floors oO ?

[darkflagrance]

I also did not know even constructed floors fell prey to tower caps.

That may be a good thing though for flavor.

Imagine flooding out your entire fortress and draining it before abandon, then coming back ten years later as an adventurer to explore the underground forest that was formerly a mountainhome, now overgrown with vegetation.