am i stuck yet? cider ferment ale yeast?

So I popped a bottle of cider three nights ago that I had brewed in october and bottled around christmas and to my slight surprise it was amazing! I mean amazing amazing and swmbo was loving it to more so than any of the ciders I've brewed thus far! Only my third. Anyway so I decided to step up the recipe from 3 to 6 gallons and do it verbatim as last time just doubled! Anyway set it up exactly as last time just double batch, well I got lazy and didn't make a starter just puilled a mason jar of washed ale yeast out of the fridge decanted off most of the top let it warm up and threw it in and mixed it in, it was probably four ounces of slurry in total and it was washed aug 1 2010, now anyway I have no acrivity in primary yet and I pitched around 18 hours ago?? Og was 1072, do I need to throw in a packet of dry yeast? Id rather not because I had awesome results with wyeast 1056 on this last batch? How long would you wait to make a starter and pitch some more 1056? Any other reccomendatikons? Sorry for any spelling and gramatical errors typing this out on my phone as I wait for a flight? Gonna be a long five days away not knowing what's going on with this batch?? Help!!!!

The yeast is almost 6 months old. It will have lost a lot of it's viability. It's possible that it is only 10% compared to a slurry that was a month old. Should have made a starter.

Good news is that there was still probably a lot of yeast left, and the dead yeast is nutrient for the live yeast, but because it was a lot less than you thought, it is taking a long time to reproduce to sufficient numbers to get the work done. Give it more time and it should be OK.

Make sure the wort temp is mid 60s or above.

Currently the thermostat is set to 68. No harm in giving it a couple weeks to see what it does and if need be repitch than right? I'm in no hurry at all as my pipeline is almost at its limit currently.

anyone else care to chime in??

Ciders can be weird. I've gone nearly 3 or 4 days with no signs of fermentation. Just when I'm fixing to throw in the towel, boom, its chugging away like mad. I like these ferments better for ciders because they go slower and allow you to stop them before it completely dries out. A very fast starting and vigorous ferment on a cider will dry it out before you have any time to do anything about it.

so does everyone agree i should be ok? i have been out of town since about 24 hours after i pitched so I am not real sure as to what is going on? if there is no signs that the cider has krausened while i was gone should i repitch using a starter this time? should i take a sample and see if it has gotten anywhere? any recommendations would be greatly appreciated as i dont want to have to toss the batch!