Acclimating pecula clowns

[737mech]

How long should it take for a pair of pecula clowns to become fully acclimated to my tank?
I got them 4 days ago and I'm confused and concerned about what I'm seeing. I have a 38 gal tank with 2 hermit crabs. Tank is fully cycled and h2o all looks good. I lost the original fish all to an ich outbreak a month ago.
On to the clowns...I spent 2hrs slowly acclimating the fish to the tank. Later the smaller one ate flake and brine while the larger only picked. The first two days were the same. On day 3 and four the larger one started eating alittle better and the smaller one stopped eating anything that I tried to give him. Today day 4 I got live shrimp brine from the LFS. They also confirmed that my h2o is great. The larger one ate some, but not as much as I thought she'd do. The smaller one didn't eat.
The smaller one is also acting lethargic and breathing hard sometimes. His color is good and I can see no signs of external parasites.
Has anyone had such an experience? I did read a post recently that sounds similar and has me worried. I don't want to loose any more fish right now. I'm very new to the hobby,so your input is very welcomed.

 

[aileena]

do you have any other fish in the tank? Is there live rock in the tank? If you have a hospital tank it is probably a good idea to quarantine the sick fish and treat him/her with copper or myacin...if you have live rock or corals you cannot use copper or any other meds...you should treat the fish....
when you say your h2o is good what do you mean?
Am ...
Nitrite ..
nitrate..
KH....
ph....

 

[737mech]

I have no live rock and only the 2 clowns. I do however have 2 hermit crabs that went thru my last ich battle which are doing fine.
I haven't gotten my QT up and running yet. I was hoping that I could get away with putting the 2 clowns in the tank and not use the QT this time. I got them from the best palce that Dallas has to offer. They said today to give them some more time to get adjusted. The larger one is acting pretty good tonight:eating and pooping and swimming. The smaller one is still on hunger strike, but is swimming around some. The heavy breathing troubles me. Is he sick or still adjusting???
Is myacin an antibiotic?
The water is amonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 10, ph 8.2, temp 78, s.g. 1.021

 

[737mech]

Bad news...The small clown is DOA. The larger one is doing fine.

 

[aileena]

sorry about your loss...hermit crabs cannot get ick because they are inverts...i would add LR to your tank...and from now on QT your fish when they get sick...some say to QT before you get the fish even especially if your fish store doesn't treat the fish while they are at the store...
LR helps with filtration and it is also asthetically pleasing...do you have a protein skimmer? Do you have a sand bed or crushed coral? how long has the tank been set up???

 

[737mech]

I noticed the other clown starting to breath heavy and not too active; staying in one area of the tank. Called LFS and I have returned it. They apologized and told me that these were not tank raised clowns and that this sometimes happens. They replaced them with 2 tanks raised clowns free of charge. Which really surprised me, since they have a 48 hr replacement policyand it's almost 7 days since I bought them.
The tank has at least a 3 year history. I bought it in Jan. 2003. It was set up and running when I got it. It has a skilter filter/skimmer, underground gravel filter with 1 powerhead. The bed is crushed coral and aragonite reef sand on top of that.
I thought about making changes to the setup, bur since things were working I decided to leave things alone. I would like a better protein skimmer. I've never gotten anything but white foam and lots of bubbles in the tank when I run the skimmer portion.
I'm getting my QT setup asap. Thanks for your advice.