Also The only t5s they have at lowes are 3000k. Is that good enough for my little seedlings or only for flowering plants?

Anybody?

Either setup will work fine for seedings. However, if you plan to grow them to maturity under your lights, I would go for the High output. Simply because mature plants need more light.

As for you question about the 3000k, it's fine for seedlings as well.

Hope this helps.

so...regular t5 is not enough to see a plant through to maturity?

What are you growing? If it's lettuce, it's fine. Tomatoes, no; they'll survive, just don't expect much fruit. But in general, the regular (non-HO) flouro are just good enough for seedlings only. In fact, even the HO lights are not so great for the taller plants.

I do have to admit that I don't run a T5 HO setup myself, but run on over-driven T8's (almost similar light output) for the shorter plants and HPS for the taller ones. So, if anyone have experience growing with them please feel free to cut in.