Do firefish shed skin?

[Mashtun]

Hello,

I am trying to figure out if firefish shed their skin, or some type of outer layer. I have a firefish in QT that showed a couple dots I suspected to be ich, so at the recomendation of my LFS I tried feeding it New Life Spectrum ich shield to see if that combined with premptive prazipro for everything else might improve its health and nip the ich in the bud before it took off. Anyway, after the 21 day treatment I switched back to regular NLS and started observing for the ich to return. I have not been able to see any ich which was promising but during my water change tonight I think I startled the fish while dumping water in the tank and it looked like it literally swam out of its skin. It happened fast obviously, but where the fish was I saw some weird translucent stuff. Whats worse is if it is skin, it had white spots on it that resemble ich, so maybe I have just missed seeing it on the fish due to its white body. could anyone shed some light on what this might be? If this is in fact ich infested fish skin I need to know so I can go out and buy some curpramine. If not, well, I would just like to know what it is.

Thanks!

(sorry for the bad pictures, but its the best I could do considering the subject. I also realize there is no scale, but the longest piece is about the length of the fish)

 

[Stevenliu9]

wow that's interesting. I have fire fish for a long time and never seen such behavior/action. But would love to hear more from others' experience. However, I must say that fire fish for the most part are very hardy, I have never lost one due to disease- most of them died from jumping.

 

[sepulvd]

I had a fire fish for almost 1 year never seen it she'd before buts that's pretty cool

 

[Betta132]

Now, it's possible that firefish can shed... but I think we would have heard about it before if they did so.
Sounds more like it shed its slime coat. Keep it in QT and keep treating... just in case.

 

[Mashtun]

yeah slime coat makes more sense than skin, but I didn't realize it was actually something that could come off like that. Do you guys think those dots look like ich?

 

[Betta132]

A fish's slime coat can be rubbed off, and some species of parrotfish make it into a bubble every night to sleep in. It hides their scent.
Yeah, looks a lot like ich. Assume ich is still present and treat as such. And I think I know how you can detect it on the white fish... put something rough into the QT, like a piece of rock. He'll flash and rub on it if he has ich.

 

[snorvich]

If a fish has ich in its gills, it will not flash. It will however, "breathe" quickly.