Greg, I ran dead rock for a couple months maybe, then moved over to all Walt Smith rock.
Yes, I had a lot of die off that couldn't be removed, although pulling all the sand has apparently helped, nutrients are now at 0. I'm probably going in the rigth direction now, and Tim's advice is good, adding fozdown and carbon source directly to the tank.
Removing by hand is tough, as it's short little clusters that don't come off easily, although I got a bit out last night with tweezers.
I might look at cheato for sump if I can add some light and find some cheato :)

I still have some sand and crap behind the rock that I'm struggling to get at, I might have to stick a pump down in the back and blow it out

Topping up Mg on Dave's accelerated program now, hopefully I'm one of the lucky ones that gets some results from it.

Before you do that try a siphon hose inside some 1/2" pvc to get in behind the rocks. Another option is to zip strap siphon hose to an old wire coat hanger.

Ya, thought of the pipe trick, I'll try to get it out without mixing it up if at all possible :)

Brad,this thing looks silly, and it's like $80 or some silly thing, but it actually works really well for filamentous algae removal.

https://goo.gl/images/QhQCTT

I saw it at MACNA 2012 and thought it was the stupidest thing ever but a client bought one and I tried it out, and I like it.

Wonder if that would work on bubble algae?... nevermind, I want to start over anyways.

Yup, it does look silly :)