I'm a new pool owner. I bought a house with a 16,500 gallon IG outdoor pool in Woodland Hills, CA, and found out that I can save myself 50 bucks a month by firing the pool guy that came with the house and doing it all on my own. And finding this site helps very much in my research on what to do and what not to do.

The other day, I bought what appears to be the K-2005 test kit at Leslie's because the Aquachek 7 Silver test strips I've been using have been hard at times to color coordinate. Probably because I've left the bottle outside during 100 degree heat the last few days.

Last night at about 11:00PM, I decided to test my pool water. My FC and TC were both colorless, so that means ZERO, right? I tested FC and TC again to be sure. Still no shade of pink, red, fucsia...

So, I contemplated for about 15 minutes to shock the pool to get some chlorine. My TA was high ( I think I wrote down 150 PPM) and my CYA was about 55-60. Going by Ben's Best Guess chart, my shock FC was going to be 20PPM. I didn't have any Clorox, but I did have a box of Leslie's Power Powder Plus. Going on a website that had an FC calculator, it calculated that I needed 4.12 pounds of Calcium Hypo (Power Powder Plus) to go from 0 PPM to 20 PPM. Using a bucket of water, I poured 4.12 pounds of the powder into the bucket, mixed it, and then poured that mixture into the pool.

This morning I went to the pool, and it was still cloudy. My pool does not have a main drain. I don't know why, but I think the last owner had it covered up because of some plumbing problem. So, I stuck my Hayward Navigator into the pool to help in recirculating the pool water at the deep end because I was told that it can act as a "mobile main drain".

I didn't have time to do the test kit, but I did a test strip. My TC level was within the OKAY range, but the FC was a deep purple.

I think I did a huge mistake in shocking the pool last night at that time because now it's about to reach triple digit temperatures here again, and I have my two kids, my wife's grandmother, and my wife's little cousin that would like to go into the pool because our A/C is shot to hell.

And now to the questions:

1. Did I screw up?
2. Can my kids and their great-grandmother swim even though levels are high?

I know I'll have more questions, I'm just kinda in a state of dumbness....

Thanks for your help.