I started running out of hot spring water when I increased my consumption, and when I investigated the hot spring I noticed that I only ever saw a couple of the spring blocks produce water. It seems like this kept the floor covered with a thin layer of water that prevented the other fluid springs from getting uncovered, and my pipe with drain cover was limited to taking tiny sips of those water sheets, which wasn’t enough to uncover the other springs. I solved this by placing dirt blocks over all the fluid springs and then breaking them, and surely enough, the next time I checked it, the hot spring had filled its cavity back up with water.
Is this the expected behavior? I think it would be nice if fluid springs would be considered uncovered if there was only a small amount of water on them, maybe less than 500L? I don’t know what the appropriate threshold would be, I think if it’s too small then the issue might persist at a lower severity with a few more fluid springs activated. This is only a real issue for hot springs or lava, since oil you can burn, and gas rises (and also can be burned).