Each user has a Pearl Stash, which can be accessed by clicking on its icon in the top left corner of the gameplay area. Inside, you’ll be able to keep track of how many Pearls you have collected, and as you accumulate Pearls, you’ll unlock access to trade those Pearls in for a variety of items.

Items can be redeemed at the 3, 6, 10, 16, 20, and 30 Pearl Levels. According to Games.com, the 3 Pearl level unlocks a Spikey Shell. At 6 Pearls, you’ll unlock a Buried Vessel, at 10 an Eternal Sundial, at 16 a Giant Stone Ruins, at 20 a Merman Soldier statue and at 30 a Scissortail Sergeant Fish.

To earn Pearls, you can either send them to friends as free gifts via the free gifts page, in the hopes that they’ll return the favor, or you can enter the Pearl Stash and click on the “Ask for More” button, which will take you to a modified version of the free gifts page, where you can click on each friend that you’d like to send a request for help to. In this way, they’re receiving a request just as if you had sent them a free item, but in reality, the link they receive will be to send you a free Pearl instead.

Images of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continue to inspire a great deal of anger and heartbreak, but many people also offer hope by helping clean up the mess left by the spill. Zynga’s FishVille and the Audubon Society have paired up this week to raise funds and awareness with their new Gulf Coast Turtle.

The Turtle came out last week and can be found under the “Creatures” tab at the in-game store. This Turtle is only available for the next 4 days. Zynga is promising to relinquish 50% of the Turtle’s sales to the Audubon Society and players have the option to pay either 25 or 200 Sand Dollars for it. Sand Dollars can be bought from the “+ Add Sand Dollars” tab on the top of the game window. A set of 25 Sand Dollars cost $5 USD, and while there’s no set of 200, you can buy a set of 240 Sand Dollars for $40 USD.

A new Baby Gulf Coast Turtle has also shown up in the game, which can be adopted via Facebook Wall posts, to help spread the word.

But let’s start with the beginning, since not all of us are experts when it comes to social games: what is the FishVille Treat Rack?

Well, it is a new item you have to build with the help of your friends. Once built, the Treat Rack will hold some really cool FishVille “treats” – special foods that will help you with the fish growing, XP gatherting and so on. You can get these treats for cash or Sand Dollars, but either way you need a complete Treat Rack to have access to them!

How can you build your FishVille Treat Rack?

In theory, it’s pretty simple: you need 5 labels, 5 shelves, 5 lids, 5 jars and 10 nails in order to get your Rack. In order to receive these items, you have more options: first, wait for the items to be sent in by your neighbors (each can gift three of the five items); second, you can click the Treat Rack icon in the playing screen and “Ask for more”; and finally, you can purchase the items for Sand Dollars, at the price of one SD per piece.

What Fish Treats to you get once you finish building the Treat Rack?

There are four “super foods” enabled once done, but Zynga is teasing two more which are “coming soon”. Either way, here are the treats you get and their effects:

Insta-Grow: instantly grow your fish (6SD for a 25-pack)
Mastery Food: boost mastery by 25% (7,500 coins for a 25-pack)
XP Food: 2x fish sell XP (5 SD for a 25-pack)
Coin Food: 2x coin sell value (3SD for a 25-pack)

stats for longfin damsel :
Longfin Damsel
Growth Time: 2 Days
Coin Worth age 1: 500
Exp Worth age 1: 700

In order to gain the best of both worlds (as much coins as possible as well as getting the prize) feed all your fish first as per usual before clicking the heart (love your fish icon).

After you’ve clicked the heart, you gain one heart point and you’re one step closer to redeeming the prize. You can also redeem hearts when your friends share them on their feeds. Likewise you can share yours as well so that friends can collect. Everytime the “Love your fish,” icon shows up in your tank, you are eligible for a new heart point, once you click on the icon to redeem it that is.

Once you gain enough heart points, in this case 5 points for the Tierra Antheas, click on this icon that appears in your tank:

This will then take you to the screen I posted earlier on:

and the little lock icon would have disappeared and you will now be able to redeem your prize.

Hurry though as after 9 days your heart count will reset zero, after which a new prize will be made available, and you will have to start collecting hearts again from scratch.

White Musketeer — 3 Mushrooms
Baby Dragon — 6 Mushrooms
Frog Prince — 8 Mushrooms
Fish Youth Magic — 16 Mushrooms
Blue Surgeon — 20 Mushrooms
Fish Clone Magic — 30 Mushrooms

Players can also request that friends send mushrooms by clicking on the green ‘Ask for More’ on the Mushroom Mound pop-up screen.