He was fresh water, a Mbu (giant fresh water) puffer.It sounds silly to say a fish can be friendly, but he genuinely was!
I have seen more than one puffer in a tank, but only the smaller ones. Most puffers get so big that it's hard to house more than one, My Mbu was just over 18 inches long, but they can get up the over 2 ft, and some of the salt water ones can be even bigger! I did have a small tank with a spotted puffer in, that was cute too - liked to play in the bubbles from the diffuser stone lol but was too small to be a proper pet.