In Terraria, you will be dealing with a lot of obstacles when you first start out. One huge obstacle will be exploring the overworld, especially when you don’t know what you are doing. One big obstacle that might come up is a pond or lake that is pretty difficult to get past. You could build over it, but you might want to keep it open so your world doesn’t look odd.
You can remove water in Terraria with buckets, super absorbant sponges, draining it into the Underworld, or by using a Pump system. Each process is a little tedious, but if you really want to remove the water, you are going to have to spend the time to do it.
There are many other ways to get rid of water with mods or exploits, but we are going to focus on the ways the developers intended for you to remove water. We will show you the best way to do each method, so if you are interested, keep reading the rest of the article to find out.
1. Use Buckets
Buckets are tools used to carry water, lava, or honey, allowing them to be removed or placed. With an Empty Bucket, pressing the Attack button on any sufficient body of liquid collects it, which replaces the Empty Bucket with the respective Water Bucket, Lava Bucket, or Honey Bucket.
This method will take you the longest since you can only pick up a single block of water in a single bucket. If you make a ton of buckets it will be much faster since you can fill your inventory up with them. Buckets are extremely cheap to make and will definitely take a long time to move water with how little it takes at a time.
2. Use Super Absorbant Sponges
Super Absorbent Sponges are acquired by breaking open Sunken Chests, which can be found in any water biome by fishing for the Angler. They are used to remove water from any object or block by clicking on the object/block with the sponge.
When the sponge is activated, it will turn white and start to suck up the water. The sponge will stop absorbing when it is full, indicated by a shrinking white bar. If you click on an object/block that is not wet, the sponge will do nothing. It is a little difficult to get so keep that in mind when looking for it.
3. Drain it into the Underworld
One of the easiest ways to drain water is to dig a hole underneath the water source and drain it either into a cave or all the way to the underworld. The best part about this is that you have a Hellavator, which is an easy way down to the lowest point in the game.
Keep in mind that the water does evaporate when it hits the Underworld so if you do want to keep the water, try to get it into a cave underground somewhere so you have a good water source. Water doesn’t evaporate right away so doing this would be a great way to stock up on Obsidian. You will need it towards the end of easy mode so we would recommend doing this.
4. Use Pumps
Another way to remove water is by using a pump. This can be helpful if there’s a lot of water or if it’s in an inconvenient location. Just place the pump in the desired spot and it will start sucking up the water. Keep in mind that pumps need to be placed on solid ground, so you’ll need to create a platform if the water is in a hole.
Inlet and Outlet Pumps are mechanisms used to transport liquids, without having to construct pathways through blocks or rely on gravity. Instead, an Inlet and Outlet Pump need only be connected to each other with Wires and activated, which transfers fluid from the Inlet to the Outlet.
Can you drain the Ocean?
Yes, you can drain the ocean in Terraria. All you have to do is dig a trench from the ocean to a lower point on the map and the water will flow out. You can also build a pipe system to drain the water automatically. This is something you need to think about though because the Ocean biome is actually very important. Once the water is gone, you lose access to that Ocean.
Ocean biomes have bosses and fishing spots, so destroying them would eliminate everything you could do there. You should only drain the Ocean if you are in a world you don’t care about, or you have done everything you can there. You could also drain it to make a giant boss arena because the land is extremely flat on the Ocean floor.
When would you need to remove water?
Water is used for a variety of purposes. You may need to remove it if you want to dig in a specific location, or if you want to get rid of it because it’s in the way. It can be extremely annoying if you are digging a Hellavator and there is a giant lake under the ground in your way.
You will need to dig airholes every time your Oxygen gets low and it makes the dig a lot longer and annoying. You could get lucky and find a massive cave where it all drains into, but most of the time, you need to deal with it until you make it to the bottom.