diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index ecd5b90..8bcec74 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -354,6 +354,13 @@ There is a Makefile with a few targets that we use often:
 
 ``make test`` command will run tests for the python versions specified in ``tox.ini`` spinning up all necessary services via docker.
 
+In some cases (on Ubuntu 18.04) the Elasticsearch Docker image might not be able to start and will exit with the following error::
+
+    max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144]
+    
+This can be solved by adding the following line to `/etc/sysctl.conf`::
+
+    vm.max_map_count=262144
 
 .. _Grafana: http://grafana.org/
 .. _Kibana: https://www.elastic.co/products/kibana
diff --git a/tests/test_elasticsearch.py b/tests/test_elasticsearch.py
index c588f59..c2d3c29 100644
--- a/tests/test_elasticsearch.py
+++ b/tests/test_elasticsearch.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 class TestConnectionErrors(TestBaseBackend):
     @mock.patch("time_execution.backends.elasticsearch.logger")
     def test_error_resilience(self, mocked_logger):
-        backend = ElasticsearchBackend(hosts=["non-existant-domain"])
+        backend = ElasticsearchBackend(hosts=["non-existent-domain"], max_retries=1)
         # ensure index and mapping setup failures are caught and logged
         self.assertEqual(2, len(mocked_logger.error.call_args_list))
         # ensure write failure is caught and logged
@@ -145,3 +145,10 @@ def test_bulk_write_error(self, mocked_logger):
         with es_index_error_ctx:
             self.backend.bulk_write(metrics)
             mocked_logger.warning.assert_called_once_with("bulk_write metrics %r failure %r", metrics, transport_error)
+
+    @mock.patch("time_execution.backends.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchBackend._setup_mapping")
+    @mock.patch("time_execution.backends.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchBackend._setup_index")
+    def test_do_not_create_index(self, setup_index, setup_mapping):
+        ElasticsearchBackend(ELASTICSEARCH_HOST, index="unittest", create_index=False)
+        setup_index.assert_not_called()
+        setup_mapping.assert_not_called()
diff --git a/time_execution/backends/elasticsearch.py b/time_execution/backends/elasticsearch.py
index 5eb4997..17c14f6 100644
--- a/time_execution/backends/elasticsearch.py
+++ b/time_execution/backends/elasticsearch.py
@@ -11,7 +11,14 @@
 
 class ElasticsearchBackend(BaseMetricsBackend):
     def __init__(
-        self, hosts=None, index="metrics", doc_type="metric", index_pattern="{index}-{date:%Y.%m.%d}", *args, **kwargs
+        self,
+        hosts=None,
+        index="metrics",
+        doc_type="metric",
+        index_pattern="{index}-{date:%Y.%m.%d}",
+        create_index=True,
+        *args,
+        **kwargs,
     ):
         # Assign these in the backend as they are needed when writing metrics
         # to elasticsearch
@@ -22,15 +29,15 @@ def __init__(
         # setup the client
         self.client = Elasticsearch(hosts=hosts, *args, **kwargs)
 
-        # ensure the index is created
-        try:
-            self._setup_index()
-        except TransportError as exc:
-            logger.error("index setup error %r", exc)
-        try:
-            self._setup_mapping()
-        except TransportError as exc:
-            logger.error("mapping setup error %r", exc)
+        if create_index:
+            try:
+                self._setup_index()
+            except TransportError as exc:
+                logger.error("index setup error %r", exc)
+            try:
+                self._setup_mapping()
+            except TransportError as exc:
+                logger.error("mapping setup error %r", exc)
 
     def get_index(self):
         return self.index_pattern.format(index=self.index, date=datetime.now())