Planet Zoo 2 Water Filtration, Water Pumps and Salinity

How water filtration works

Next to power, water filtration is the operations system your zoo needs for its aquariums and habitat water. Filtration Buildings clean water: each one adds to the Filtration Rate of the network it is connected to, and one network can have several. Bigger bodies of water need a higher Filtration Rate to stay clean.

Filtration Buildings wear down over time. A Mechanic has to service them at regular intervals, so the maintenance panel must be reachable by path, and they need power: if the power source that covers them breaks down, the water stops being cleaned.

How to build a filtration network

1. Open the Facilities tab of the browser and go to the Utilities screen.
2. Place a Water Filter to serve your aquariums or the water in your habitats.
3. Select Edit Filtration Network in its Info Panel and lay a pipe from each aquarium's node to the filter.
4. Set the salinity of the network there; the same screen shows the flow the network needs and what is connected.
5. For ponds and rivers inside habitats, add a Water Pump to the network.

Water Pumps for habitat water

A Water Pump connected to an active filtration network cleans every body of water that crosses its radius. That is how a pond or river in a habitat becomes clean drinking water. The pump's Info Panel also sets the temperature of the water it serves, so check what the animals in that habitat need.

18 habitat and aviary animals list water space for one adult, led by the Common Hippopotamus, Gharial and Eurasian Beaver. The finder above lists all of them, and the Planet Zoo 2 habitat planner adds up land and water space for a whole group.

Salinity: fresh, brackish and salt water

Aquarium animals need water of the right salinity, or they risk dying of osmotic stress. Of the 38 animals whose Zoopedia panel lists a water type, 9 can live in fresh water, 6 can live in brackish water and 30 can live in salt water; 25 live only in salt water and 7 only in fresh water. The West Indian Manatee takes any salinity, and the Giant Gourami, Giant Grouper, Hawksbill Turtle, Javanese Cownose Ray and Pacific Sardine each accept two.

You set salinity on the filtration network, and a change applies to every water body connected to it. A Water Pump on a filter network takes on the same salinity, so a saltwater aquarium and a freshwater habitat pond cannot share one network. Land animals will swim or wade in deep enough water of any salinity, but only fresh water counts as drinking water.

Aquarium temperature and clean water

Each aquarium's water temperature is set at its staff gate, along with the lighting, so two aquariums on one saltwater network can still be kept at different temperatures. Dirty water makes the animals harder for guests to see and raises the risk of disease; unfiltered water is a disease source for any animal that drinks it. Keepers also dive in to clean the glass.

Every aquarium animal's water area, temperature and water type is in the table on our Planet Zoo 2 aquatic animals page.