diff --git a/hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/config.py b/hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/config.py
index 1d88d43376..be895bc671 100644
--- a/hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/config.py
+++ b/hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/config.py
@@ -784,7 +784,7 @@ def _resolve_operation_temperature(operation_env: str, default: float) -> float
 DEFAULT_RERANKER_LITELLM_TIMEOUT = 60.0
 DEFAULT_RERANKER_LITELLM_SDK_TIMEOUT = 60.0
 DEFAULT_RERANKER_GOOGLE_TIMEOUT = 60.0
-DEFAULT_RERANKER_MAX_CANDIDATES = 300
+DEFAULT_RERANKER_MAX_CANDIDATES = 50
 DEFAULT_SEMANTIC_MIN_SIMILARITY = 0.3
 # Minimum BM25 score a row must exceed to enter fusion. 0.0 gates out
 # zero-score (non-matching) rows on backends — notably VectorChord — whose