Ok, so I removed stubby from the router and set cache to zero, Pi-Hole cache left @ 10,000.
Additional dnsmasq options (in dd-wrt): dhcp-option=6,192.168.1.124, router has ddns server running which SHOULD keep nextDNS updated as to my ip. still have 2 instances of dnsmasq though, except im thinking the one knows about the other now?