[rayjay]

Can't help with live plants as I've only used artificial decor/hitching and bare bottom as a means of making it easier to maintain water quality which is the number one necessity IMO for success.
If you do go with in tank copepods, or even external cultures of copepods, be sure to go heaviest on the pelagic types as I found that benthic types like tisbe are not sought after much by the dwarfs.
IME, dwarfs are probably the laziest seahorses I've kept over the years as they just don't like (for the most part anyway) to hunt down their food, preferring to stay hitched and wait for it to come to them close enough to snick.
Some of their larger cousins are this way (mainly males) but not to the same degree as the zosterae.