diff --git a/contentcuration/contentcuration/settings.py b/contentcuration/contentcuration/settings.py
index bdae87ab37..99a15858d0 100644
--- a/contentcuration/contentcuration/settings.py
+++ b/contentcuration/contentcuration/settings.py
@@ -204,12 +204,12 @@
 WSGI_APPLICATION = 'contentcuration.wsgi.application'
 ASGI_APPLICATION = 'contentcuration.asgi.application'
 
-
+CHANNELS_DB = 2
 CHANNEL_LAYERS = {
     'default': {
         'BACKEND': 'channels_redis.core.RedisChannelLayer',
         'CONFIG': {
-            "hosts": [('127.0.0.1', 6379)],
+            "hosts": ["{url}{db}".format(url=REDIS_URL, db=CHANNELS_DB)],
         },
     },
 }
diff --git a/deploy/nginx.conf.jinja2 b/deploy/nginx.conf.jinja2
index 890c7abeb6..8c10268884 100644
--- a/deploy/nginx.conf.jinja2
+++ b/deploy/nginx.conf.jinja2
@@ -90,10 +90,12 @@ http {
         }
 
         location /ws/ {
+           proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
            proxy_redirect off;
            proxy_pass http://ws_server;
+           gzip off;
         }