diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 1f7fab58b0e..e4a757b597a 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -418,6 +418,7 @@ Release 0.20.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-1581  Run major compaction on .META. when table is dropped or truncated
    HBASE-1587  Update ganglia config and doc to account for ganglia 3.1 and
                hadoop-4675
+   HBASE-1589  Up zk maxClientCnxns from default of 10 to 20 or 30 or so
 
   OPTIMIZATIONS
    HBASE-1412  Change values for delete column and column family in KeyValue
diff --git a/conf/zoo.cfg b/conf/zoo.cfg
index 1f3ca0439ad..5c2556ae78f 100644
--- a/conf/zoo.cfg
+++ b/conf/zoo.cfg
@@ -10,5 +10,10 @@ syncLimit=5
 dataDir=${hbase.tmp.dir}/zookeeper
 # the port at which the clients will connect
 clientPort=2181
+# Limit on number of concurrent connections (at the socket level) that a
+# single client, identified by IP address, may make to a single member of
+# the ZooKeeper ensemble. Default is 10.  Set high to avoid zk connection
+# issues running standalone and pseudo-distributed
+maxClientCnxns=30
 
 server.0=localhost:2888:3888