No questions here are stupid, well almost. You shock your pool to kill chloramines or CC-Combined Chlorine which is the used up chlorine (bad). You do this by bringing up your FC-free chlorine which is the unused chlorine ready to work (good) so it can kill the bad. The level will depend on your CYA (a.k.a. stabilizer) level. You need to test to find out what your CYA level is so you know what level you should keep your chlorine and what level to shock, when required. I very rarely have to shock since I (as CarlD says) stay ahead of my water. You will add enough bleach to bring your FC level up to shock level and bring your CC level to 0. Before the forum crashed, Ben had posted his “Best Guess Chlorine Levels” chart however I’ve been unable to find it on the new forum. Maybe someone else can give you this. Also, you will note that mwsmith has a link on his signature which is a fantastic little program he wrote to calculate how much bleach (and other chemicals) will change your water based on your pools size/gallons. Look for post with his response or maybe he'll chime in. I highly recommend using this. Hope this helps.
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