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Is there a small fish that I could keep 1 or 2 of in a 2.5 gallon to keep the tank cycled while I don't have any fry? Ideally these fish will not eat fry. I was thinking maybe a pair of cherry barbs or maybe checkered barbs but I wasn't sure if these would eat my platy fry. Anyone have any other ideas?

Any fish will eat fry so long as the fry are small enough to fit in their mouth. Newborn platy fry would probably be plenty small enough for nearly any fish to eat. You could add one of the smaller species of applesnails though. They are often used in fry tanks not only to keep them cycled between batches but because they help clean up leftover food from the bottom more than any midswimming fish and their waste increases the growth of infusoria in the tank. Infusoria is often used as a first food for fry and sometimes one of the only things that is small enough and easy enough to feed for species that have extra small young.

I've never had any snails. I would probably have to take out the gravel then right? Are apple snails hermaphrodites? Whats the best thing to feed them?

You don't have to take out the gravel. They don't care about the substrate. Alot of people do like to keep their fry tanks bare though so it's easier to clean the leftover food and droppings out of the bottom. I prefer to set my fry tanks up with substrate and lots of random extra plants I pull from other tanks. Whatever works for you provided the tank doesn't start showing ammonia or high nitrate levels.

Applesnails are not hermaphrodites. It requires 2 snails of opposite gender to reproduce and nearly all species lay their eggs above water in large easy to see(and easy to remove) clumps. You just have to make sure you get the smaller species which are usually sold as black mystery but also come in most any other color. The larger ones are almost always gold and sold as the gold mystery or gold inca snail. They eat anything. Usually one of the points to having them is to let them clean up the leftovers from whatever you feed the fish. The smaller ones are more carnivorous preferring fish food but enjoy an occasional piece of lettuce, mango, squash or other fruits and veggies. There's more info and a better identification guide than just color on http://applesnail.net/.