The diurnal rhythm of an animal indicates a comprehensive adaptation to various circumstances. Study on the relationship of tourism disturbance and the nocturnal rhythm of Chinese giant salamanders (CGS, Andrias davidianus) could shed lights on whether and how tourism disturbances affect its breeding behaviors. Previous studies have shown a significantly negative correlation between the intensity of tourism disturbance and the content of dissolved oxygen (DO) in water. In this study, we simulated the water environment as high and low tourism disturbances by controlling the influent volume (mainly affecting DO content) in the ecological breeding ponds of CGS. By monitoring the dens exit and entry time of CGS, measuring the dynamic changes of water temperature (WT), DO, and the contents of coliforms, we compared the changes of nocturnal rhythm under different factors of water quality, and discussed the patterns of nocturnal rhythm in response to different tourism disturbances. The results showed that the dens exit time of both female and male CGS in the simulated high tourism disturbance waters were significantly later than that in the low tourist disturbance waters. Under these two water conditions, the dens exit time for females were 19:10±0:22 and 18:53±0:24, and for males were 18:29±0:20 and 18:13±0:18, respectively. The time that female and male CGS in the high disturbance water exited from the dens were delayed for about 17 min and 16 min, respectively. However, there were no significant differences between the dens entry time of CGS (including both males and females) under two simulated tourism disturbance waters. Under these two water conditions, the dens entry time for females were 24:10±0:13 and 24:18±0:17, and for males were 6:44±0:23 and 6.40±0:29, respectively. In addition, we also found that the dens exit time of CGS had significant correlations with three factors (WT, DO and coliforms). However, there were no significant correlations between the dens entry time of CGS and WT, DO and coliforms, which may indicate that the dens entry time was mainly determined by the circadian clock. In summary, changes in water quality under high tourism disturbance had a moderate impact on the nocturnal rhythm of CGS during the pre-reproduction period, which was mainly reflected from the dens exit time.