Pitched at low temperature

First time all grain brewer. Just finished brewing a IPA around 5:00pm. Problem is that when I was cooling the beer did not realized that the inline thermometer out of the therminator was way under its reading. I ended up pitching a yeast starter of a California ale ( wyeast labs) at 56 f degrees. I have not seeing any sings of fermentation. Should I try to heat the carboy with a heating pad to bring up the temp or should I just wait until it comes up naturally?

how long has it been that you haven't seen an action in the fermenter
even with out the answer the yeast should be fine and it will start bubbling away soon

I would not worry about this in the slightest. I have heard the Sierra Nevada ferment some of their beers using (essentially) the same strain at something like 53F. Just let it warm up to your target range over the next day or two as it ferments. But I presume that since you are using that strain, your goal is clean fermentation...so fermenting a bit colder is not the end of the world.

56 aint that low. Just let it warm up naturaly to the mid 60s and it'll be great.

The yeast should only go dormant until the temp of the wort comes up. Once the wort temp comes up you should see more action. I have cooled my wort too low before and have not had any trouble with fermenting, just keep the beer in the optimal temp range.

Temperature is now 66F and I can see some movement on the bottom of the carboy.

Thanks for the info. Earlier tonight I had to switched the air lock to a blow off hose bc of the heavy foaming. That would have been a horrible mess if I would not have checked it before heading up to bed.