Because the Rhino was designed for whole house applications and needs a higher flow rate, it is a 5 micron filter which will remove sediment 4 times smaller than is visible to the unaided human eye. The AQ-4000 is a .5 micron filter that will remove cysts which are 40 times smaller than can be seen by the human eye.

Finally, the Rhino was not designed for the removal of lead, as all of the lead in your water comes from inside your house. There is the potential risk of lead entering the drinking water from lead lined pipes, lead solder and brass plumbing fixtures inside the home. All chrome-plated brass and brass plumbing fixtures contain 8% to 15% lead. The EPA estimates that 98% of all homes have pipes, fixtures or solder joints in the household plumbing that can leach some level of lead into the tap water. For more information on lead in drinking water, click here.

The difference between the Rhino and the Aquasana Countertop is that the Rhino filters water at 38 litres per minute, and the Countertop filters water at ~ 2 litres per minute. This slower flow rate allows for a longer contact time with the media, and because it was designed to only filter 2400 litres (instead of 12,000,000), it can concentrate more heavily on more aggressive contaminants, like VOC’s, MTBE and THM’s.

The U.S. EPA has stated that “Every household on municipally treated water, has an elevated level of Chloroform gas in the air, specifically from showering, washing dishes, washing clothes and flushing toilets.” The Rhino will filter out the Chlorine, so that you are not being exposed to the carcinogenic, asthma and allergy irritating effects of Chloroform gas every time you turn on a tap, flush a toilet, wash dishes, wash clothes, shower or bathe.

The Rhino is also the only perfect shower filter there is. Because of the size constraints, the difficulty in filtering hot water (90-110 degrees), and the 2.5 gallon per minute flow rate, no shower filter can remove all of the Chloroform, Chlorine and THM’s present in tap water. The Rhino is also the only viable way to filter bath water. This is because there are no standards for bath taps, and there is no way to design an adapter that will fit all or most.