Furan-2 - what is it effective against?

[BigShot]

Contains Nitrofurazone 60mg
Furazolidone 25mg
Methylene Blue Trihydrate 2mg

I wonder what is it effective against? Can it be used instead of kanamycin/erythromycin?

Thank you,
Luke

[bigfishman]

I did try this thing and it worked ok for me. I used it to treat fin rot of couple of fishes before. It is used for against some bacterial inflection of fish.

Since in the package it says "This product contains a chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer", so i do not use it anymore. Instead, I am using Furacyn that contain 100mg of Nitrofurazone with great success.

[BigShot]

I wonder if Furan-2 can be substituted for kanamycin or erythromycin or perhaps minocycline (Maracyn2). Could someone please say which can be substituted for each other and which treat totally different symtoms? I'm asking because on the packages of all the 4 above, they all say they treat pretty much the same symptoms.

Thank you,
Luke

[SAT]

We've been recommending either Maracyn-2 or nitrofurazone for most infections, and for the most part they're interchangeable. Erythromycin has more problems with resistance (at least in saltwater) than those two. Since most hobbyists aren't set up to do culture tests, there's really no way to identify specific strains of bacteria, or what they're sensitive to, in advance. The good news is both Maracyn-2 and nitrofurazone are fairly broad spectrum.

Don't use any flavor of nitrofuran on a fish you want to breed, BTW.

[BigShot]

Thank you.

[bigfishman]

Don't use any flavor of nitrofuran on a fish you want to breed, BTW.

What does it mean?

Is it meat that if a clown is ever treated with Nitrofurazone, it will NEVER breed in the future??

I am a bit worried because I treated my maroon clown recently. It is now doing and is eating very well in the main tank.

[SAT]

According to Noga, nitrofurans (including nitrofurazone, nitropirinol, and furazolidone) are carcinogenic, genotoxic, and mutagenic and are strictly illegal for use on food fish in the United States. A short duration treatment is probably no big deal (and a lot better than losing the fish), but I'd choose other treatments if you intend to breed.

BTW, you should also dim the lights when using nitrofurans... they are broken down by light.