Endemic to the Río Atrato drainage in Choco and Antioquia departments, northwestern Colombia, where the full extent of its range is somewhat unclear.

Type locality is ‘Río Truandó, a tributary of Lower Río Atrato, Colombia’, and it may be restricted to that system.

This species appears to be a relative ecological generalist. During a sampling trip in 1989 it was collected various habitat-types including a narrow (maximum width 3 m) stream containing shallow (maximum depth 1 m), transparent, moderate to fast-flowing water and substrate comprising gravel, mud, clay and organic debris including submerged logs. Aquatic plants consisted of water lilies and marginal vegetation was dense, comprising various trees, shrubs, grasses and ferns.

This species can be found in most dealers' tanks and is one of the best choices for the newcomer to fishkeeping, being attractive, hardy and inexpensive. As virtually all the fish sold in the trade have been captive bred they tend to be relatively unfussy regarding water chemistry and diet.

It's occasionally confused with N. lacortei, which is currently the only other species in the genus. They can easily be told apart by looking at the eye of the fish in question, as the male N. l…