If two water pipes can fill a swimming pool in 18 hours when both are open. One of the pipes can fill the pool alone in 45 hours , how long would it take the other pipe to fill the pool alone? Ans: Pipe A fills 1/45 of the pool per hour. Let pipe B take x hours to fill the pool. So in one hour, it fills 1/x of the pool. So in one hour, they together fill 1/x + 1/45 =of the pool. In 18 hours, they fill 100% of the pool. So the equation is: or or or So the pipe B would take 30 hours to fill the pool by itself. Hope this helps.