Are you using any kind of water softener?
Might be a good idea to get a TDS meter. Also before you use the water, i'd check all the normal parameters (nitrites, nitrates, and so on) after you've mixed in the salt just to make sure everything's good. Also, how realistic is buying water from a LFS? Might be best option if your water is really that bad. Good luck!
Here's something I found:
http://www.co.gloucester.nj.us/depts/h/hedss/envhealth/sw.asp
I don't know that I'd be using that water for anything but black water use.
It sounds like you are just bypassing the membrane and do not have the back pressure to force the water through the membrane. Do you have a flow restrictor on the line for the waste water? It looks like a check valve but it will have a 600 or 800 number depending on your membrane.
Do you know how old the RO membrane is?
I feel your pain Josh, I also got mine second hand and I know with mine it was not intuitive. I expected it to go 1-2-3-4 in some order but it seemed it went right for 1- then 2 – then up to the membrane(which I called 4) and back to 3. The units all start as pretty much the same thing – a few clear or white canisters on a bracket with (or without) an additional canister mounted horizontally on top of the bracket. From there they vary quite a bit. I had a whole write up on mine but it was lost when the board crashed last summer. Anyway, what I did, if you look at the videos on BRS and look for the how to “add a membrane flush” kit that sort of explains (by accident) the route stuff should take – what Paul (redfishbluefish) said above is correct as I understand it – the path should travel from the sediment block(s) to the carbon blocks(s) [the number can vary if you have a 4 or 5-stage] leaving the carbon the water should go to the RO membrane (on my unit, this is the white PVC bullet style canister mounted horizontally on top of the bracket). Now here’s where my memory gets a little foggy. I think the bad water leaves the membrane as waste at that point, the good water travels (again on mine) back down to the third clear canister and goes through the DI resin pellets. The water that leaves that stage is “clean” (and here some people for drinking water would add a final carbon block, mentioned before for polishing) I hope this helps – and sorry about the situation with your daughter. Hopefully, all that happened was the water she had bypassed the membrane (with somewhat high TDS for algae growth) but still went through the sediment and carbon and got most of the unhealthy for consumption stuff out. The water before it gets to the membrane and resin is already considerably cleaner than what left your well.
Side note: Be prepared to run through the sediment blocks kind of quickly though. They’re cheap, if it was me, and I was placing another order for a TDS dual meter I’d get a few extra carbon and sediment. Also, with the well (I’m no expert here) I might use the extra spot you have for a second sediment filter to try and get 80-90% of the dissolved solids out before it even contacts the carbon.
Good luck
The membrane housing has a screw on cap on one end. That is your RO input and that line comes from your sediment and carbon block filters. On the other end there are two outputs. The one in the center of the housing is the product water. The other one (offset from center) is the waste water output and should have the flow restrictor. You should have a very slow but steady output from the RO membrane.