I am in Central Arizona and SW Colorado.
I had issues with my FF going bad if I didn't keep it wet enough. Its not really a hassle to drain the liquid, I have an easy system that takes me all of about 30 seconds to do, and the reserved liquid is used to jumpstart my new batch daily.
Quite a few folks have thought their FF had "gone bad/molded" when what they saw was actually yeast and or SCOBY. It takes a considerable bit of time for FF to mold. But it sure can get smelly after 4/5 days. And that's the way it's *supposed* to be.....