There both good eels. I have a tire track eel that's about 10"-11" long. The only drawbacks to keeping these spiney eels is their finicky eating habits and their ability to slither out of the aquarium. I woke up once in the middle of the night to find my eel on my living room floor, presumably attempting to crawl back to India.
During the winter, I have to buy live blackworms for my eel because he stopped eating frozen food.
Right now, the eel does some strange stuff like crawling out of the tank and climbing into the Aquaclear filter on his tank. He then peers out the spout and watches what's going on in the room. Sometimes he pulls down the plastic box that holds the sponge and slithers into the motor compartment. The other night I heard him hit the impellar of the motor: ERRR-R-R-R-R-R!! He didn't get hurt, yet.
Tire track eels seem to be more common and less expensive than fire eels. I can't remember exactly, but I think I paid $7.00 for my eel at the Shark Aquarium.