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[GhostDwemer]

Go into your inventory screen and look under liquids. Tab to change modes. What kind of water do you have? Do you have a well? What kind of water is listed as being in the well? Just plain water, or stagnant water? What about your buckets? I've done some experiments, and I'm not entirely sure what is going on yet, but I have a hypothesis.

In my current main fort, I have a reservoir connected to a stream. The water from the stream has to go through a carved fortification and a wall grate (at one point, I thought grates cleaned water) to get into the reservoir. From the reservoir, I have a floodgate leading to a tunnel leading down to a reservoir in my main meeting hall where the well is. This water has been through a grate, and a well, and it is still listed as stagnant, containing a "grime coating."  I built a test fort with water pumped from a stream, and that water was clean.

Some people say that wells clean water. I really don't think that is currently the case.  I think that only pumps clean water. Some people think only murky pools produce stagnant water. I don't think this is the case, either. I think the grime coating comes from any natural watercourse or murky pool floor, and acts like salt from a salt water biome. Underground water, coming off of a rock floor, probably won't have the grime coating and will start out clean. Cleaned water pumped back into a drained murky pool (or a dry river bed) would probably pick up more grime. This requires more testing...

[Xenos]

Maybe if you keep the water under your well flowing rather than use a reservoir...

[GhostDwemer]

Maybe if you keep the water under your well flowing rather than use a reservoir...

That is how it works in the test fort. Dwarven water reactor moving water constantly under the well. Do you think it is the motion that makes it not stagnant? Okay, we can make water flow without pumps, first try putting a well over a brook, I suppose. Then over a carved out channel with flow redirected from a natural source.

But I'm betting on conserved game mechanics. Why create a whole new set of tests for whether water is currently flowing when drawn from, when there is already the salt water game mechanic? Pumps clean salt water, and wells no longer do, right? Bet its the same for grime.

[Mantonio]

Evidently well designs have to be altered to compensate for this.

Rather then having one trench parallel to a river to build your well on, you need two parallel trenches that are connected, so there's constant water flow. Makes sense.

Edit: BUT! How would you implement this in a seaside fort, where you're relying on desalinated ocean water? Maybe use a second pump that pumps fresh water back into the sea? Creating a sort of stable loop?

[MagmaMcFry]

The trick is to not let your water touch any natural rock or soil after having it go through the pump. Construct a reservoir and build a well on top. This always does the trick.

[Hyndis]

The trick is to not let your water touch any natural rock or soil after having it go through the pump. Construct a reservoir and build a well on top. This always does the trick.

This.

It seems to work reliably for my past several fortresses.

I construct a cistern under the well with all floors and walls replaced by rock blocks. Every surface the water could possibly ever touch are made out of rock blocks and never natural rock, not even smoothed or engraved natural rock. Since I've been doing this the water seems to always be clean rather than stagnant.

[slothen]

bumping this with a question.  I tried to do this and I've apparently failed, since a dwarf just took an empty bucket to the well and came away with stagnant water.

Can doors over constructed floors contaminate the cistern?  can boulders contaminate the cistern?  does the cistern need to be made of blocks or are "rough _______ block wall/floor" okay?

Lastly, can the water be contaminated by unrevealed floor tiles a z level above?  or if the cistern is filled up to 1 z level below the well, does the floor around the well need to be constructed?

I have no idea where I went wrong here.

[slothen]

rebuilt the entire cistern using only blocks this time, still got stagnant water.  Then I realized the floor underneath the impassable tile of the pump was a "rough" construction, still not a natural wall.

[cog disso]

You need to build the cistern, rather than mine it out, THEN you pump the water into it. If pumped water comes into contact with natural stone/soil, it will get stagnant.

[Ganthan]

What if you were to just simply not allow the cistern to fill all the way to 7/7 water in every tile?  Stop it so it's around half 3 and half 4 or whatever endlessly sloshing around.  Sure, it would eat up a few more CPU cycles but the water would technically stay in motion.  Wouldn't that keep water clean?

[slothen]

Can anyone confirm for me, do the constructions HAVE to be from blocks? or are rough constructions okay?  because everyone has said "no natural anything,"  but i've tried this with rough constructions and had no luck.  If rough constructions ARE okay, then I've been chasing a red herring and I have a different problem somehow.

Furthermore, I'd like to know if people that have successfully done this constructed ceilings over the top of their cisterns.

You need to build the cistern, rather than mine it out, THEN you pump the water into it. If pumped water comes into contact with natural stone/soil, it will get stagnant.

but thats the thing, before starting the pump, I've lined everything with constructed floors and walls.  The first time it didn't work.  I suspected it was because the constructions were not made from blocks, so I removed them and relined it with blocks.  Again it didn't work.  The only thing I could think then was that the pump was built over rough constructions instead of blocks, or that the water was contaminated by ceiling tiles.

Wouldn't that keep water clean?

would it?  I don't see what that has to do with it.

[abadidea]

When I played on a salty map, I built cisterns from "rough" stone. They would work the first time, then when I refilled them, they would become salty even though I refilled them the exact same way.

In the end I had to break into the caverns for water   

[Quietust]

The rules for getting non-stagnant water are almost certainly identical to those for getting non-salty water.

[Mimidormi]

I can confirm that, for desalinated water cisterns, blocks are not necessary, rough stone floor/walls/ceiling work fine. Anedoctal evidence, but still.

[slothen]

I was actually building two separate cisterns at the same time.   The first one failed twice, either because of the ceilings, or because stagnant water had been in there before.

Turned on the second cistern which had never been used before, made sure to channel all ceilings out and replace them with block floors, and it worked just fine.  Even better, my first attempt ever at linking a pressure plate to a gear-pump setup to keep it full indefinitely seems to have been a success.

thanks for the help.