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Hi there,
well something you should know is that
you cant just set a tank up, whip a ton of fish
into it, and expect things to go ok.
Firstly, 6 platies is too much for a 5 gallon tank.
Any platies are too much for a 5g tank.
These fish grow to be 3 inches long in females and
need a minimum of 15 gallons of space.

Second, a tank needs to go through the nitrogen cycle. This is the breakdown of fish waste - pee and poop (ammonia) first into nitrItes, then into the least harmful, nitrAtes.
When you put fish in the tank, ammonia starts to build up. Ammonia is lethal to fish in small amounts. Once the ammonia reaches a certain concentration, a type of bacteria grows to eat up the ammonia. This bacteria converts ammonia into nitrItes. Nitrites then start to build up, which are also harmful to fish, and once reaching a certain concentration, another type of nitrobacter bacteria grows to eat the nitrItes, converting them to nitrAtes, which is not very harmful to fish.

During the cycle, fish can die. It is recommended you dont use fish, or only use 1 or 2 hardy fish to cycle a tank.
You could use 2 platies to cycle the tank, but platies will not be able to live in a 5 gallon tank.
I would return them all to the store, or to any local
fish store.
You could keep white cloud minnows in a 5g tank, in a group of 5 if that is all you plan to keep in there,
or in a group of 3 if you would like a snail, some shrimp, or another small fish like a betta.
You need to do water changes on the tank regularly, to keep ammonia levels low to avoid killing the fish.
You need to get water tests (drip liquid not strips), to test the ammonia daily. When you see ammonia levels reaching 1.0 ppm or higher do a 35% water change (do not suction the gravel and remember to add dechlorinator to the water first and adjust the temperature to that of the tank). You may need to change water every day, or every second day through the cycle.
The cycle will take 21-60 days.
If you can get a product called "Biospire" you can use
that to help cycle the tank with fish in it.

Here is a link to information on the nitrogen cycle. Please read it. The ammonia spike in the tank is probably what killed your platies. Do not use a breeding net in such a small tank, let the fish go.
Unless you have another 10 gallon or 20 gallon tank in which to raise the hundreds of baby fish you are about to get, just let the adults eat the fry.

http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-cycling.html


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Walmart also just isn't the best place to get healthy fish. While some stores aren't bad most have a high death rate. A big reason for that is the employees working the fish area know nothing about fish. They are just given a quick instruction on what to do. You'd be better off finding a fish specific store or at least a petstore with a large fish department and employees that actually keep fish.

Another problem could be your acclimating procedure. Did you just leave them in a closed bag for an hour? That will cause stress and possibly death. You need to at least open the bag to allow oxygen exchange and temperature will actualy be equal between the bag and tank within about 10minutes. Usually people take longer to aclimate because they are slowly mixing their water with the bag water. Temperature is only one of the things you need to adjust the fish to. They also need to adjust to the water being used in your tank. To do that scoop a bit of tank water into the bag, leave them a couple minutes to get used to it, and do it again. Pour water off into a bucket as the bag gets full until all the water in the bag has been replaced by tank water. Usually I only take about a half hour to do that unless I'm acclimating fish from very different water. Sitting around in a bag with no water movement or places to hide is stressful and could result in death all by itself. Especially if you leave the tank lights on. The lights can heat the bag up to a higher temp than the tank. It's best to turn them off or if you only have 1 small strip you can sometimes shove it to the very back of the tank so you still have a little light. Finally after you carefully move the fish from the bag to the tank keep the tank lights off for the rest of the day and don't feed them. That will give them time to settle in and they will be less stressed by morning. Resume your normal light and feeding routine the next day.