diff --git a/psiturk/psiturk_config.py b/psiturk/psiturk_config.py
index c213b061d..807772730 100644
--- a/psiturk/psiturk_config.py
+++ b/psiturk/psiturk_config.py
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ def load_config(self):
                     #print 'changed ' + name + ' in ' + section + ' from ' + value + ' to ' + os.environ[name]
       
         # heroku dynamically assigns your app a port, so you can't set the port to a fixed number
+        # database url is also dynamic
         if 'ON_HEROKU' in os.environ:
             self.set('Server Parameters', 'port', os.environ['PORT'])
-
+            self.set('Database Parameters', 'database_url', os.environ['DATABASE_URL'])