Freshwater pearls are mainly cultivated in lakes, rivers or ponds by triangleshell pearl mussel. They come in wide variety of body colors - white, pink, orange and purple. Fresh water pearls are non-nucleated and their size can be 10 mm or larger and it takes more than 8 years for such pearls to be cultivated. The quality of chinese fresh water pearls has improved to the point that they can produce nearly round shaped pearls.