Fish pecking at other fish with Ich?

[melina]

Hi everyone! I'm new on here and have a very strange question regarding two of my molly fish. I got a new female molly at a store yesterday, introduced her to my tank with no problem, and was very happy with the addition. However, after waking up this morning, I noticed that the new (younger and smaller) molly was pecking gently at my older female molly. The older molly has had ich for a while now, and is being treated currently along with the rest of the tank. It looked like the smaller molly was pecking at the ich spots on the older molly, which I have never heard of happening before. The female molly was tolerating it suprisingly well, just sitting and letting it happen (also turning slightly vertical in the process? [I thought that was worth mentioning]) until after a while she snapped and startled the smaller fish to get her off.

Does anyone know what is happening here? I didn't know if the smaller molly could get ich from nibbling the older molly, and I didn't know if this is problematic or not... any advice?

(attached are pictures of the two fish: the dalmation is much smaller and the marble is much larger)

 

[tlindsey]

I also had to learn this but never add fish to a aquarium you are treating and the fish being treated is infected. The new fish will get infected quickly if the aquarium is not eradicated. Do you gravel vac during water changes?

 

[melina]

My mistake! I won't do that again, thanks for letting me know. I've been checking the smaller molly for signs of Ick but she is acting fine and has no spots. I will still keep an eye out.

I do vacuum the gravel during water changes, but I will try to do so more often because I know Ick goes into the gravel... hadn't thought of that, thanks for the idea.