I have whole wheat and rye starters created from the same origin and
stored in my fridge. My whole wheat chef I keep firm, and within 8
hours at room temperature it gets "soft" and "stretchy" on the inside.
It only takes a small amount to build into a starter. My rye starter
acts very differently. For one, nothing seems to happen when I keep
it stiff, even for several days (though it does sour). So I started
keeping it wetter. It seems to soak up an ungodly amount of water to
get to mud-consistency. If I keep it very wet (like really wet mud),
it starts to bubble after about 24 hours at room temperature, and on
the second day the bubbles and even some foam are evident. Once it's
going if I then build from it, it reproduces very rapidly, within
hours. But if I simply add 1-2T right out of the fridge to flour and
water it seems to take days.

In other words, once it finally gets started it's quite vital; but as
soon as it hits the fridge it immediately reverts back to slow-motion
again. At first I assumed this was because I was refrigerating it too
early before the yeasts were vigorous enough. So I refreshed it again
and again in the usual way every 12 hours for a few days till it was
bubbly and vital, put it in the fridge and... same old same old.... It
was immediately back to lethargy.

I know all starters need to wake up from the cold, but my rye seems to
take forever in comparison to my wheat (days compared to hours). Is
this usual or just the luck of the draw? Does rye starter require a
warmer temperature in relation to wheat (my leading theory)? I was
curious how others would describe their rye starters in comparison to
their wheat.