diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/merge/scheduler/ConcurrentMergeSchedulerProvider.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/merge/scheduler/ConcurrentMergeSchedulerProvider.java
index d8117749d9b..df436f31ac8 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/merge/scheduler/ConcurrentMergeSchedulerProvider.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/merge/scheduler/ConcurrentMergeSchedulerProvider.java
@@ -20,7 +20,6 @@
 package org.elasticsearch.index.merge.scheduler;
 
 import com.google.common.collect.ImmutableSet;
-import org.apache.lucene.index.ConcurrentMergeScheduler;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexWriter;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.MergePolicy;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.MergeScheduler;
@@ -57,8 +56,9 @@ public class ConcurrentMergeSchedulerProvider extends MergeSchedulerProvider {
     public ConcurrentMergeSchedulerProvider(ShardId shardId, @IndexSettings Settings indexSettings, ThreadPool threadPool, IndexSettingsService indexSettingsService) {
         super(shardId, indexSettings, threadPool);
         this.indexSettingsService = indexSettingsService;
-        this.maxThreadCount = componentSettings.getAsInt("max_thread_count", ConcurrentMergeScheduler.DEFAULT_MAX_THREAD_COUNT);
-        this.maxMergeCount = componentSettings.getAsInt("max_merge_count", ConcurrentMergeScheduler.DEFAULT_MAX_MERGE_COUNT);
+        // TODO LUCENE MONITOR this will change in Lucene 4.0
+        this.maxThreadCount = componentSettings.getAsInt("max_thread_count", Math.max(1, Math.min(3, Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcessors() / 2)));
+        this.maxMergeCount = componentSettings.getAsInt("max_merge_count", maxThreadCount + 2);
         logger.debug("using [concurrent] merge scheduler with max_thread_count[{}], max_merge_count[{}]", maxThreadCount, maxMergeCount);
 
         indexSettingsService.addListener(applySettings);