Power and water are the boring part of zoo building, until they break. Then shops close, info screens go black and animals get sick from dirty water. This page covers how both work and how to avoid problems.
Power
What needs power?
Most buildings and many items: shops, staff buildings, education screens, some lights and some habitat equipment. If something needs power and doesn't have it, it stops working and you'll get a "facility unpowered" alert.
Power sources
| Source | Good | Bad |
|---|---|---|
| Generator | Works anywhere, reliable | Bad for your sustainability score |
| Solar panel | Better for sustainability | Needs sun (trees shading it reduce output), breaks down and needs a mechanic |
| Wind turbine | Better for sustainability | Big and hard to hide |
Swapping generators for solar panels gave one zoo a noticeable bump in its sustainability score, and that's part of your zoo's star rating. It's one of the cheapest ways to earn stars.
Power coverage
Each power source covers an area around it. Open the utilities heat map to see which buildings are covered. When you build a new area, the most common problem is that it's outside existing coverage. That's what "multiple facilities without power" means.
Fix: place a power source nearby and run a small staff path to it so a mechanic can get there for repairs. Tuck it behind a building or some bushes so guests don't see it.
Water
Pump, filter or treatment: what's the difference?
People mix these up all the time:
- Water pump: keeps a pond or pool fresh for drinking. Every land habitat with a pond needs one.
- Water filter: cleans water and has a capacity (called supply). Aquariums and big pools rely on filters.
- Water treatment: a bigger option for large networks.
If animals complain about drinking water even though there's a big pool, check that the pool is actually connected to a pump or filter.
Supply and demand
Every pool and tank belongs to a filtration network. The network shows two numbers:
- Supply: how much water your filters can clean.
- Demand: how much water you have, based on its area and depth.
If demand is higher than supply, you'll get "insufficient water filtration" and the water gets dirty.
Real examples:
- Supply 1,000 vs demand 1,800: not enough. The fix was to make the tank shallower.
- Supply 2,500 vs demand 2,300: fine. Two habitats shared one network that had spare capacity.
- A huge open-ocean tank needed just two filters, while a deep reef tank had to be shrunk to fit.
Ways to fix a shortfall:
- Add another filter.
- Connect to a network that has spare capacity.
- Make the water shallower or smaller. Add some land islands or rock arches; they make the habitat more interesting and reduce volume.
- Watch out when raising a barrier: the water level goes up with it, and so does demand.
Fresh water vs salt water
You set salinity on the filtration network. Almost all reef and ocean fish need salt water. Each species' Zoopedia page tells you which it needs. You can split filters off a network to make one part fresh and another salt.
Watch out: if you drain and refill a tank, the network can switch back to fresh water. Always check it after refilling.
Breakdowns
Pumps and filters break down from time to time. When a pump fails, water quality drops quickly and animals get sick within days.
- Keep at least one mechanic in every work zone that has water.
- Give important habitats two pumps so one can fail safely.
- If you hide a pump, make sure it still works. One tucked inside a hollow tree didn't, but one placed in the ground and hidden by bushes did.
Hiding pipes and filters
Filters aren't pretty. Some easy ways to hide them:
- Build a small utility hut around them: four walls, a roof, a door frame (no door needed) and a little wall light.
- Hide them behind rocks and tall reeds.
- Put them backstage, next to staff buildings.
Just make sure a mechanic can still reach them by staff path.