Watermom's right.

When I wrote those pages on PoolSolutions back in 1995, I was really just trying to offer people bits and pieces of a better way. Using bleach or borax or baking soda were just three of those bits. But, people started referring to "bleach, borax, & baking soda", and the CarlD coined the phrase "BBB method".

But, the method is really more about using the chemicals you need, and ONLY those chemicals, in the easiest and most efficient way possible, than it is about actually using bleach or borax or baking soda.

We do recommend bleach, a lot, and often recommend borax. But we don't often actually suggest that people raise their carbonate alkalinity with baking soda instead of "Alkalinity Increaser".