firemouths, blue acara with normal rooting plants. but a few more fish with plants that attatch to wood or rocks, ive had saums, con, sev and P loisellei but these do get bigger than what you want except for the con.
thanks for the feedback guys. I'm picking up another tank (55 long) and want it to have a decent amount of flora. My oscar beats the sht out of any living plant in the aquarium- and sadly, i cant stand fake plants.
I have GTs at the moment as well, they are about 1.5-2"- how well would they do in a planted environment?