Tortoise owners, where is the poop coming from!

Factual Questions
1

I own a Russian tortoise. I bought him about 3 weeks ago after owning a snapping turtle for years (he died). I feed it a gel for tortoises, supplemented with Romaine and Raddichio lettuce, with sparing apple slices and always a calcium dusting. Got the UVA/UVB light, heat lamp and under tank heater, fresh water, etc.

Every couple days, I clean out the clumps formed in the Calci-Sand.

I put him in a bucket of luke-warm water and he would not stop shitting! Is this normal? Is it supposed to be done more often? How the hell can he hold it 3 weeks?!?

Was the bucket of water a pranks foisted on me from friends who want a good laugh? Are they supposed to “hold” the stuff for complete digestion? Is 3 weeks too long to wait? And is the bucket of water a stimulus? Or would it happen anyway?

2

While IANAH, maybe, since tortoises are generally dry-land animals, as opposed to turtles, which live in or near water… your tortoise may have been scared, you know, in the proverbial way, when you dunked him.

Maybe this will be useful.

3

I do not own a tortoise, but I found this quote here: