It's only my second starter on the stirplate and the first one got krausen and sediment while it was still going so I guess I'll have to chalk it up to experience or lack of I should say.
Oh
That's the situation is it? Well I'll give my pat answer then.....
(Ready?)
One thing to realize is that you can't compare one brew to another. No two fermentations are exactly the same.
When we are dealing with living creatures, there is a wild card factor in play..Just like with other animals, including humans...No two behave the same.
You can split a batch in half put them in 2 identical carboys, and pitch equal amounts of yeast from the same starter...and have them act completely differently...for some reason on a subatomic level...think about it...yeasties are small...1 degree difference in temp to us, could be a 50 degree difference to them...one fermenter can be a couple degrees warmer because it's closer to a vent all the way across the room and the yeasties take off...
Someone, Grinder I think posted a pic once of 2 carboys touching each other, and one one of the carboys the krausen had formed only on the side that touched the other carboy...probably reacting to the heat of the first fermentation....but it was like symbiotic or something...
With living micro-organisms there is always a wildcard factor in play...and yet the yeast rarely lets us down. So it is best just to rdwhahb and trust that they know to what they are doing.
So just because you "have never had this happen before"
doesn't mean that the yeast are doing anything wrong. It just means that you haven't experienced on of the infinite NORMAL behaviors that living organisms, living wildcards, are capable of.
Don't assume the worst with the yeast,
realize that they've been making beer since long before our great great great grandfather copped his first buzz from a 40 of mickey's out back of the highschool, so they are the experts.
Yeasts are like teenagers, swmbos, and humans in general, they have their own individual way of doing things.
Of over the last dozen starters with tubes, smack packs or bottle harvesting, I have ever only seen one Krauzen or "activity ring." Either with or without my stirplate., but I've never had a starter not "start."
So shut your off, wrap a towl around the flask to warm it up a bit and I betcha everything will be fine in the morning.