AVS Q&A with… Kyle Martin of NCDartFrogs.com!

Another exciting Q&A!  Kyle Martin of NCDartFrogs.com is absolutely one of the premier poison frog breeders in the US, and he is very active on social media.  He eagerly shares his wealth of knowledge with other hobbyists, and he certainly helped me out a lot when I got started with Dendrobatids.  Like me, Kyle has a background in aquatics and has parlayed some of that knowledge into creating a tadpole rearing system that is as state of the art as one can get.  Let’s do this!

I start all of the Q&As by asking about your background.  What led you on this particular path, working with poison frogs and vivaria?  I’m sure the readers would love to hear about your extensive background in aquatics.

Well, first I would like to thank you for having me on for this Q&A! I have kept aquariums my whole life, and I took a career path in aquaculture. When I was working with aquariums on a professional level, I needed to find a new “hobby”, so I decided to try keeping some poison dart frogs.

I want to jump right in and talk about your amazing tadpole rearing system.  Can you tell us about it?

I fell deep into the hobby and before too long I had several breeding pairs of frogs. This lead to lots of tadpoles in cups. When I found myself with a bookcase filled with cups on every shelf, I was determined to find a better way. I had several issues I wanted to remedy, besides just being able to fit a bunch of tadpoles in a small amount of space. This included things such as being able to feed the tadpoles as much as they could eat, without compromising water quality, as well as eliminating competition between tadpoles. Basically, I wanted the benefits of all the different rearing methods, without the various downsides. It was an effort to grow the biggest and healthiest tadpoles the fastest, with the least amount of work for me. I drew on my aquaculture experience to design MartinMorphisis Tadpole Systems. These tadpole systems use individual cubicles of adjustable size to isolate tadpoles from their competition while allowing them to be raised in a shared body of water. Since there is just one body of water to concern yourself with, you can employ all the bells and whistles. This includes micron mechanical filtration, ceramic biological filtration, various chemical filtration, ultraviolet sterilization, automatic top-off, etc. Each system is custom made, so the options are limitless! 

MartinMorphisis Tadpole System

Let’s talk about NCDartFrogs.com.  I know it wasn’t your primary source of income for a long time.  What were you doing before working with frogs and plants?  What was the impetus to doing the frog business full time?

As I mentioned earlier, my career has been in ornamental marine aquaculture since I was still in college; getting my degrees in Biology and Chemistry. My two areas of focus had been coral aquaculture as well as seahorse aquaculture. After selling my seahorse farm in Maryland and moving down to North Carolina to build a commercial wholesale coral farm, I found myself getting more and more devoted to NCDartFrogs.com. After having twin daughters in 2023, I decided I needed to narrow my focus in order to be able to spend more time with my family. Naturally I chose working with the frogs out of my home versus a commercial warehouse with 100% humidity! 

What’s your favorite frog species and why?

That is easy! Dendrobates tinctorius! They are a large, bold, and colorful frog that are easy to keep, and there are a couple dozen locales to collect! 

Everyone raves about your plant packages.  Do you enjoy working with plants as much as frogs?

The plants have certainly grown on me! I have never had a very green thumb with keeping plants indoors, but it turns out that in a glass box with dedicated light and irrigation plants are easy to keep! As I got more and more vivariums, the diversity of my plant collection grew very diverse. I had been just trimming the plants in the vivariums as needed and throwing the trimmings away. When COVID-19 started, I had more time on my hands, so I decided to offer plant packages to people on social media. I sold over a dozen packages that first weekend! Turned trash into treasure. Hearing how much people enjoyed the packages and raved about the value of the bargain packages excited me and made me want to spread the joy of vivarium keeping even more. So I made more of an effort to collect and grow different vivarium plants that I could share with people. These plant packages have grown to be the most re-ordered item on my website, clearly people enjoyed them! 

NCDartFrogs.com Plant Packages

Who are some of your influences?  Doesn’t have to be strictly frog or plant folks.

I would say my Uncle Chuck, who first got me into aquarium keeping when I was a kid. This literally directed me to the course I took my life, and I couldn’t be happier! 

Finally, tell the readers how they can find you online.

You can find me on Facebook and Instagram @NCDartFrogs and my website NCDartFrogs.com! 

Another great Q&A in the books! Stay tuned for the next one!!!