clownfish ignoring my anemone for 3 weeks now, is this normal?

[patrick88_ca]

So I finally got a bubble tip anemone last month, small orange one, looked happy from day 1 in my 40g. Placed it on a rock in the middle, decent flow, lights on 9 hrs. And my pair of ocellaris clowns? They want NOTHING to do with it lol. They're still hosting my powerhead housing like total idiots.

LFS bhai told me "give it time, they'll figure it out". It's been 3 weeks now. I even tried the trick where you tape a picture of clowns in an anemone to the glass (yes I actually did this, don't laugh) and nothing. Water params are fine, 1.025 salinity, nitrates around 10, temp 78. Anemone hasn't moved since day 2 so I guess it's happy?

Is this just a wait it out thing or did I get lazy clowns? Read somewhere that tank bred clowns sometimes never host anything. If that's true I'm gonna be kinda bummed ngl. Anyone here had a pair that took months? How long did yours take?

Also while I'm here, I've been slowly adding easy corals around the anemone and there's a good list on this thread if anyone else is starting out like me

https://aquariumowner.com/threads/beginner-corals-that-are-nearly-impossible-to-kill.12