Is this Betta behaviour common?

I’ve got several Betta Splendens and a house full of fish tanks as a result. I keep 4 females in my community tank. These females are happy enough in each other’s company but today as I was about to do a water change I noticed a bubble nest. Nothing particularly unusual there but I noticed eggs in there and then saw them attempting to mate.
The eggs are only being released by one female but the other one has an egg visible. They are gathering them up and putting them in the nest and the other fish are happily gobbling the leftovers. To be honest they are gobbling most of them.
I had no idea that this would happen with two females and feel bad that the dominant one is now going to fiercely protect her nest in wait of the fry which will never come to fruition. I’m clearly quite naive in my knowledge of Bettas so thought I’d ask the experts on here. I have successfully bred 5 batches of Bettas but never seen this behaviour!

I believe this is a perfectly normal behavior for betta fish and, if anything, indicates a happy healthy fish!

This reminds me of those two gay penguins, Roy and Silo.

Pretty interesting, but I don't know if it's common. Someone who breeds lots of bettas might have a better idea.

Are you sure they are both females?

threecharacters said:

This reminds me of those two gay penguins, Roy and Silo.

Pretty interesting, but I don't know if it's common. Someone who breeds lots of bettas might have a better idea.

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itiwhetu said:

Are you sure they are both females?

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I thought the same thing but they’ve both got the white egg protruding and look nothing like my males. Eggs were coming out of both of them but mainly the one who thinks he’s male. The eggs came out of her the moment she released the other female rather than whilst she was squeezing. I’m thinking of putting her in with a male but I fear she will attack. It really is a strange situation!