Treating ich with salt

Question
I have a 10 gal tank which is about two years old. 3 neons, one adult platy and two fry (one has died since the tx started, he had a bent spine and never got very big. the other is now about 1/2 inch)and had one Chinese algae eater (also died since starting the tx)

Last Sunday I noticed white spots on my mickey mouse platy.
I got the algae eater two weeks prior so thought he may have brought it in. Only the Platy has shown any signs of ich though.  I had just kicked the rocks around last Sat and did a 1/2 water change as I have green algae. My water tests are always good though and algae was never too bad.

I treated with a half dose of clout, then read about how the CAE may not do well with that, so about six hours later I put my filter back in and did a water change.

I turned my heat up to 80 (broken heater won't get any higher)and added one tsp of salt per gallon ever 12 hours like one website suggested. I also added an air pump to the tank.  All fish seemed fine with this.  I did that Mon Tues and Wed and yesterday I found the CAE and the bent spine platy dead.  Not sure what I did wrong.  I did a 30% water change this morning and only one dose of salt yesterday and one again today.  Can you help clarify how this darn salt treatment is supposed to work?  The living baby platy now is staying at the top of the tank and seems to be losing energy (did not eat much today which was abnormal for him).  Now that my CAE has died, should I just go back to the clout or another treatment?  My platy with the spots has lost most of them, but there are 4 light ones on his tail.  Still never saw any signs of ich on the other fish. If this isn't ich, I sure don't know what it is!  

I really appreciate any help you may have for me!  

Answer
Sometimes all those treatments and requirements can be quite confusing. First, ick is a very deadly and aggressive disease. Often fish do not survive. While it can be cured it is a tricky disease as it causes a enormous amount of stress on the fish. Raising the temp was a great idea as temps above 78-79 usually help eliminate the ick. I would suggest keeping the heater set this high even when the ick is gone, this will help prevent a reaccurance. Also, it is interesting that the other fish do not have the ick. Ick looks just like you sprinkled salt on your fish, does it look like that? It also causes the fish to swim bad, not eat, and look overall stressed, does this sound like that case? If not, I would imagine the problem would be an internal disease. Next, salt is SOMETIMES a good idea and it SOMETIMES helps to cure the fish but not always. I honestly do not use it very often. I have been keeping fish now for over 10 years and do not use salt, in fact in all the years I have been keeping fish I probably have only used it once or twice. This is of course does not mean it never works, just that it is not my first choice. I would recommend doing a water change to help remove the salt and buy an all-in-one fish treatment that says it covers a wide variety of fish disease and parasites. Treat with that and follow the directions exactly. Do not continue to use the salt for now. Wait and see what happens, sometimes it takes two treatments. Otherwise, try not to stress the fish out as that is the reason they get diseases and parasites in the first place. Also, sometimes the fish we buy in the stores are from bad breeding and are not very strong to begin with. In these cases, the fish do not do well after they get a disease or parasite. Basically, a treatment is your best bet but it does not always work. Do the treatments and please feel free to get back to me if anything changes or if it does not work. I hope this helps and I hope the fish get back to normal. Let me know if you need anything else.