Water has a Dk of 80 times air, so the rapid avalanche time of arcs becomes quite lossy in the plasma tubes to kill pathogens. I remember someone made million$ supplying the military with plasma tubes to decontaminate potential anthrax in water supplies back in the post-911 CIA war profiteering days with condensed plasma tubing in water purification.
Fluorescent tubes are basically UV radiators with 2 or 3 phosphors coating the glass inside to shift the wavelengths to visible white light. (I love tri-phosphors for true white light, 50kh MTBF/ 86 lpw efficiency)
For water purification, they wouldn't need the phosphors, so I imagine heavy-duty glass tubes and about >>10 watts per foot of tubing and enough tubing to exceed the decay rate times flow rate.